We Didn’t Know East Coast Boondocking Was Like THIS

After taking a shortcut through Canada from Michigan to New York, we're exploring a state park that has been voted the best in the nation. However, camping on the east coast is just different and today we're not holding anything back as we let you know what we really think about RVing on this side of the country. So many stinking trees. All these trees. The trees, they're not great for solar. Then come along as we try boondocking in the northeast for the first time ever. That was crazy and there wasn't even a sign. I was feeling so good and now I'm feeling so nervous. Like as soon as we entered the state forest area, it just got so hilly and foresty. Oh my gosh, that was the absolute steepest road. At a spot we've never been to with no reviews and having no clue on what we were really getting ourselves into. Well, we are definitely back on the East Coast. I mean, look at all these trees. We're paying for electric hookups right now at a state park because the problem with the East Coast is that... There's like no boondocking out here. There's some, but it's very, very scarce, especially for big rigs. Somebody told us that we was gonna be boondocking over here and we ain't done it one time since we got out of Canada and back east. Ice, ice, ice, ice, ice, ice, ice. Where? Did we have hookups at the casino we stayed at? That doesn't count. That was like, you don't, if you stay in a Walmart parking lot overnight, you don't call that boondocking? That is a question. I actually agree with him. That's like dry camping. Yeah. Well, and it's only one night. I don't count it as boondocking. I think boondocking is like, you set out on an adventure without hookups. It has to be at least two nights, right? It has to be. Is there a cutoff? Let us know in the comments. I don't know, but whatever side is my side, we're the right side, so. Of course. But anyways, okay, it's true. I did have a couple of spots picked out in New York that I was thinking we were going to be boondocking at, but then I wasn't really sure if they'd be big rig friendly. And then I saw six nights available at the state park, which has been voted state park in all of America. We don't know that yet though, because we haven't been anywhere except for our campsite. That is accurate. But we're about to find out. And so I decided to come here, but don't worry. Tomorrow we're setting out to go boondocking on the East coast. And I really have no clue how it's going to go. Cause we, we don't really have experience boondocking on the East coast spots in Florida. Yeah. Huh? That's my Southeast in me right there. Yeah. Yeah. Where we, uh, boondocked I grew up in Central Florida at a water management area. Northeast. We haven't done any northeast boondocking. Oh, what other stipulations is she going to add to this? So, you're going to want to see that. But for right now, we're about to explore. Do you know what state park this is? That's my other question. Do you know what state park is? Apparently the best state park in all of the country. If so, put it in the comments below. And we're going to get ready to go hiking. Let us know if you think it's overrated. I feel like a lot of times these things get voted the best, the best, and then it's just kind of overrated. Like, what's that hike? Angel's Landing? Angel's Landing. Oh my gosh. We're starting a big controversy now. Don't tell everybody our unpopular opinion about Angel's Landing. It ain't the most dangerous hike. We gotta get ready. We're about to lose our entire audience before this video even gets started. Let's go hiking. So we're at Letchworth State Park. It's known as the Grand Canyon of the East, I guess. That's what Victoria told me anyways. It's the only person I heard it from, so if it's not true, it's her fault. But right now we're on the road. It's 17 miles. We're going to go see a one of the three waterfalls. It's supposed to be the most famous waterfall out of the three. And I don't know. Yeah, hopefully it'll be good. Fall is a beautiful time to be up in the Northeast because you start to get the leaves changing. You get some beautiful colors. And I think this is going to make for a really great day. We're about to get our first view of the gorge. Better be good. It looks got me out here. in nature. oh how terrible. terrible. it looks like it might be deeper than the Alora Gorge we were at in Canada. it gets more canyony off in the distance there. headed that direction. we're at the Great Bend Overlook and the gorge depth is 550 feet. there's a bunch of people here. i didn't expect this. also i didn't expect there would be a restaurant though either. This is Craig, casually backing into a parking spot that looks like it's made for a Prius. It's a little tight. But it's the only one. I think we're good. Plenty of room. You ready to do this thing? I think so. We've had our first wildlife sighting. I just saw a little snake slither across the trail right in front of me, and Craig said I didn't say actual words, but what I said is, oh look, a little snake. Anyways, we're on the Lower Falls Trail, which is a section of the Gorge Trail, about a three mile section. There are 66 miles of trails in Letchworth State Park, which is crazy, but we wanted to see the Lower Falls because you get to get up close and personal with them. Well, I tell you, they're just safer out here, out east. Look at these fences to stop us from falling off the gorge trail. Out west? Out west? There's no fences. You'd have rock climbing right off the side. Just fall off the edge. We're going right down there to that footbridge, I think. Not too far. You tired already? No, it's humid though. It is humid. Whoa, very cool view we got here. Some rocks just fell. Crazy. They just came from like that little section out there. And shh, right those splashes in the water You can't actually see the falls as good from the bridge. Grew up in Florida, but ever since we started traveling, I just, we aren't used to the humidity anymore. I'm sweating. We leave for months at a time. When we come back, we're like, how did we ever live in this? I don't even know I could sweat anymore. It's crazy. Oh gosh. But that was a nice hike. There was a lot of foliage, which made it a little hard to view the falls as good as I wanted to, but we've got two more waterfalls to view. So we're on our way. How sweaty is my butt? It's pretty sweaty. So we ate lunch at Iris Inn. It's a really cute little cafe, a little bit expensive, but it's right next to Middle Falls. You can walk down the stairs, see Middle Falls, then drive over to the big parking lot area near Upper Falls, which is probably the most picturesque one with the train bridge right above it. We just heard a train, so we might get to see it go across the train tracks. Perfect timing. Oh my gosh, how lucky is this? Such perfect timing. Oh, here it comes, here it comes. Oh, awesome. I'm starting to speak now. So a cool fact about this river, the Genesee River. Is that how you say it? I think you somehow managed to say it the weirdest way possible. The Genesee? Yeah, I think just Genesee. Oh, Genesee River is that it flows north, which is pretty cool. I think it flows up to the Great Lakes. I'm not sure about that part, but it does flow north. But we've seen all the waterfalls. We now have to go back. To the RV which is really close to all the waterfalls. That's another great thing about this park is like if you come with your RV here or tent whatever like you're not far from everything. You're literally a bike ride to all the falls and everything to see all the sights so you can go back check on dogs get lunch whatever you want to do. So we're going to go back check on the dogs then we got to go into town to get ready for our boondocking adventure tomorrow. This will be an adventure because we don't even know where we're going but we know we're going boondocking. Dagnabbit. Because we don't have reservations anywhere else. Nope. So I guess we better find somewhere to boondock. Oh gosh, this is going to be a fun one, guys. It's going to be a fun one. Good morning we're about to be packing up and getting ready to head out of here this morning but after staying here this week back on the east coast I am reminded once again how different RVing on the east coast is. First of all no boondocking which we've already talked about except for the spot that I found that we're going to today. I really don't know how this is going to go but we will see. The weather here is really different too. It rains a lot and even when it's not raining there's a bunch of like little droplets of water in the just atmosphere everywhere. Keeping everything wet? A lot of people call it humidity, but it's not great. And there is so many stinking trees everywhere, so we definitely got to get up here and sweep everything off. Look at all this pine straw. How you gonna get around these sand pot solar panels? The trees are nice. They do make it feel like you're actually out in the woods camping more, even when you're in a campground. But they're not great for solar either. Like, if we didn't have power, I don't know what we'd have been doing this week. And we stick out like a sore thumb with all these solar panels. Nobody else out east ever has solar panels. They'll have like one or two panels when then our whole roof is just covered in it, and we look. Not so smart, no, because we're at camping grounds all the time because there's nowhere to boondock hardly. It's funny. Starlink is also much more of a problem out east as you can see we've got ours right back here by the road barely even in our sight trying to get a clear line sight line of sight clear line of sight clear line of sight to the sky because if there's any trees in the way it drops every couple of minutes. You almost forgot your coffee. My hands are full. I'm telling you, you really got to watch out for those trees here. There's some little brushes. They're pretty low. I don't know. Watch out for the tree. We also are a little bit traumatized from our tree experience. If you missed that one a little while back, we accidentally made contact with a branch. Yeah, we might have got a little hole in our roof. A little hole. Oh, no. So many. The dump station. So many. So none of the sites at this campground like the state park have sewer that I know of and you have to come to this dump station which there is like three dump stations in this spot but still a lot of people have to come here and dump. We really should have been leaving this campground earlier than this because our boondocking spot is like five ish five and a half hours away and I am not so sure about it. I'll tell you why in just a little bit, but I just wish we would have got an earlier start. Hopefully we're not trying to pull in after dark. Our boondocking spot we're headed to today is in Pennsylvania, almost all the way through Pennsylvania, which is why we're driving so long. It was tough to find boondocking that looked like it was big rig friendly and seemed like it was going to have availability, and by availability, usually you don't have to worry with that with boondocking. I mean, you have to worry about it, but you don't worry about it until you're there because first come, first serve. But apparently this year in Pennsylvania, They have started making these boondocking spots reservable, and you have to pay $10 a night for them. They're scattered throughout like the forest and down roads, roadside spots, but they are individually reservable. Anyways, this spot has zero reviews on Campendium. It is the first time ever we're staying somewhere where there was like no reviews. And I'm a little concerned because it's in the forest and I don't know what we're about to be driving into today. It'll be an adventure, that's for sure. We're almost there. We're about 30 minutes out. It's a good thing because it's been getting dark early and it's almost 5 15 now. Should have enough daylight though left when we get there hopefully if nothing goes wrong. We've gotten off the main highway. We're still on a paved road but oh I think it stays a paved road. It's a narrow paved road. It is a narrow paved road though. Okay believe it or not our spot is supposed to be right off this main road that we're on right now. It doesn't really look like there would be camping spots along this road. Oh. But apparently there is, so we'll see. I, so I wasn't totally flying blind on this spot. I did a lot of Google map looking and it looked like this spot was a big opening at a trailhead almost, but it was also a dispersed camping site. So anyways, I'm hoping for good solar and good Starlink because the service, yeah, a little iffy. What do you think of where we're at? Oh my, this road is not too great. A lot of blind spots. You can't make him happy. I'd pick him a nice paved road for Boondock It's nice that it's paved, but like somebody's front of their truck was just sticking out in the road. Over a hill and so we almost couldn't see it. It's not great. Like we are on some, it feels like you're just on some back road that happened to be paved. That's true. Boondocking wise though. Oh yeah boondocking was perfect. Okay now we've entered the state forest and just saw a sign that says winding road next three miles and the road condition immediately deteriorated. I don't know what the speed limit is. Well you just don't go too fast. Oh wow. Geez. Oh my goodness this is probably the steepest hill we've been on. Oh my gosh This is really steep. you can't tell it in the camera but whoa oh my gosh first time the truck has struggled oh my gosh wow nobody said it well i was about to say nobody said anything about the grade nobody said anything about anything because i couldn't find any reviews of this place look at this road condition it's like big humps oh my gosh more hill just long enough to get a little break for the I was feeling so good and now I'm feeling so nervous like as soon as we entered the state forest area it just got so hilly and foresty. There's supposed to be a big opening right up here on our left. Fingers crossed with us that there is. Here it should be right right here. Right up here. So I turn on that road? Yeah, basically wherever we see a big opening. I don't know what to tell you. It's going to be... I see snowmobiles that way. Okay, so obviously not into the woods, but I think there's about to be a big parking lot. I think this is going to work. And now it wants to tell you 11% grade. Yes, right here. So this is our camping spot. Oh, it is a big open area. And there's a picnic table over there that we can just pull right around and be right over there. You see it? Right over here. This is our camping area. This is our camping area. Look, see? CV021. We just pull right here. I don't know what's on the picnic table, but I mean, I guess we should figure out where it would be best for Starlink and everything else that there's these trees right here. We made it here, though. I mean, this is very crooked, huh? So unlevel. Hopefully we can get level. I'm going to get level. That was, that was something. Oh my gosh. That was the absolute steepest road we have been on with the RV. Like my truck, this, this truck has never struggled to tow this camper or our last one, but it was struggling then. And we went through Colorado. Yeah, now this that was crazy and there wasn't even a sign like I don't know Maybe I missed it, but usually there's like a sign to tell you the grade that I don't know what grade that was, that was bad that had to be over 11% grade We've decided to reposition a little bit over so that our Starlink can hopefully get up over these trees here And we are a little unleveled, but we're gonna have to just roll up on some blocks. All right, we did it We are boondocking on the East Coast granted. It's not free. We're paying $10 a night for this spot But we did it and there was no reviews. The first time staying somewhere with no reviews. We made it and we didn't die and we didn't destroy anything yet. Although this will this this spot specifically seems like the only one that we would fit in. I don't know. We haven't checked out the other ones yet. We'll check them out. I don't think we'd be able to go down the roads for the other ones. Yeah, so I'm glad I did my Google mapping and made sure we were gonna be a big open spot, but I don't know if you can hear it, but there is some road noise. We are right here by this road. It is not like the most secluded spot for solar, Starlink not destroying a fifth wheel, but still boondocking. It'll work. It'll work. It'll work. We're out here. And it's all gravel right here. So that's nice. It's not going to be muddy. The dogs have some places to run around here in the woods. So if you want to hear a little bit more about boondocking and some of the unwritten rules, the stuff that people won't necessarily tell you, hit the subscribe button because that's what we're going to be talking about next week. Thank you guys for joining us. 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