onX recently announced the addition of a new layer to its suite of onX Offroad products: onX Dispersed Camping. The layer pinpoints close to 140,000 miles of roads and trails in the US National Forest System where dispersed camping is legal. For those not familiar with the term, dispersed camping, also known as free camping, refers to camping outside of designated campgrounds on public lands. It’s typically off-grid, meaning there are no facilities; these campsite require campers and overlanders to be self-sufficient, and follow the Leave No Trace guidelines.
The Dispersed Camping Layer from onX is the first of its kind, and its creators hope that it will reduce “congestion and collective impact on public lands” by allowing campers to easily identify and locate vehicle-accessible locations that they can legally camp at. “By highlighting all the legal camping corridors, instead of pinpointing a limited number of marked sites, the layer helps users spread out, which helps disperse the environmental impact seen on popular sites pinned in other products,” said onX Offroad Content Manager Chris Cordes.
READ MORE: You Can Now Use onX Offroad in Your Dashboard with Apple CarPlay
Similar to overlanding, dispersed camping has grown in popularity over the last five years, with more campers than ever exploring far beyond the typical campsite. When onX’s motorized Dispersed Camping Layer is toggled on, the layer highlights the road and trail segments that house dispersed camping areas in yellow, users can click on the road or trail for each area’s unique regulations.
onX says that before this layer, there were two options available to campers seeking dispersed campsites: they could consult Forest Service PDFs, which are clunky and non-interactive, or they could rely on user-generated apps that varied in their accuracy. With the app’s new layer, overlanders and campers can view camping information in the context of their route in real time.
As of this summer’s launch, the Dispersed Camping Layer is available for 11 states, including vehicle-accessible corridors in US Forest Service lands in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. onX says it plans to expand the coverage nationwide later this summer, and include dispersed camping on other federal lands in the future. The layer is currently available to onX Offroad Premium and Elite users. At the time of this writing, a Premium yearly membership costs $34.99, while the Elite version comes in at $99.99, billed annually.
You can find out more about the new layer here.
