Felicia Fullwood is an adventure photographer and van lifer who left her corporate career to embrace the freedom of dispersed camping (also known as wild camping) and life on the road. Since her first wild camping trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, she’s built a thriving platform as a content creator, blogger, and outdoor enthusiast. On YouTube and Instagram, Felicia shares practical advice and inspiration for fellow travelers navigating van life and off-grid camping.
Welcome to the Wild Ideas Worth Living Summer Camp Series! In these bonus episodes, we’re exploring camping beyond the traditional tent—from bikepacking and packrafting to camping with kids and dispersed car camping.
Felicia Fullwood is an adventure photographer and van lifer who left her corporate career to embrace the freedom of dispersed camping (also known as wild camping) and life on the road. Since her first wild camping trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, she’s built a thriving platform as a content creator, blogger, and outdoor enthusiast. On YouTube and Instagram, Felicia shares practical advice and inspiration for fellow travelers navigating van life and off-grid camping.
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Shelby Stanger:
Welcome to our summer mini-series, All About Camping. In these bonus episodes, we're going beyond the standard tent and campsite set up, from bikepacking and rafting to camping with kids and dispersed car camping. Over the next four weeks, we're talking to people who are camping their own way, sharing what works, what doesn't, and how you can try it too. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studio's production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard.
Felicia Fullwood:
The first time that we ever went dispersed camping was just in my SUV actually, before we bought our van, and that was probably the most liberating moment for me. I just remember vividly laying in there, I remember the blanket I had around me, being like I can't believe that I'm just now finding out about this.
Shelby Stanger:
Felicia Fullwood went dispersed camping for the first time when she was 24 years old and it changed her life. Dispersed camping, also called wild camping, is when you set up camp somewhere that isn't a designated campground. These spots are typically free and tend to be much more private, plus, you can get even closer to that off-grid wilderness experience. The catch is that you have to be completely self-sufficient for this kind of adventuring. You need to haul in your own water, handle your own waste, and carry out your own trash. While dispersed camping can take a little more preparation and know-how. It's a perfect way to escape the summer crowds and get off the beaten path.
Seven years ago, Felicia and her boyfriend started dispersed camping and living on the road full time. She had just walked away from a corporate job to pursue adventure photography, a move that launched her career as a content creator, blogger, and general outdoor enthusiast. On her YouTube and Instagram page, Felicia shares van life inspiration and advice for fellow travelers. Her love for dispersed camping started a few years ago on her first wild camping trip to Michigan's upper Peninsula. The experience opened her eyes to the freedom and flexibility this lifestyle offers. Felicia Fullwood, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm excited to talk to you about dispersed camping.
Felicia Fullwood:
Thanks for having me. I'm stoked to be here.
Shelby Stanger:
Tell me about the first time you ever went dispersed camping.
Felicia Fullwood:
I was 24 at the time, I think, and my friend Roman's like, "Hey, yeah, you can just disperse camp wherever in Michigan. We have all these national forests and state forest land that you can go on." And I'm like, "What? You just pick a spot in middle of nowhere?" He's like, "Sure, I'll take you." And he took us out there and we camped in our little SUV, it was like a Chevy Equinox back at the time, tiny, and we slept in the car. And I'll never forget that night sitting there being like oh my gosh, because I had lived in Michigan my entire life and I didn't know that we had this beautiful entire peninsula that I had never explored and that you could just go and camp wherever you wanted, and that was a huge game changer for me.
Shelby Stanger:
After that first dispersed camping trip, what did you learn? I mean, it was magical, but is there anything you would've done differently?
Felicia Fullwood:
Sure. I think the biggest thing is that I learned that I needed a lot less in life than I thought. I always thought that by 25 I'd have this job, this car, this partner, everything figured out by then, and at 24, I was sitting in my Jeep far from that. I did have a job that I loved and a partner that I loved, and I was doing what I loved, however, I didn't have everything else figured out, but for whatever reason, just sitting in there was such a liberating moment feeling like this is really all that I need. If I'm able to explore the places that I want to go, camp in my vehicle for free with the person that I love, that's really all that I needed in life.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you prep for a dispersed camping trip?
Felicia Fullwood:
I would identify the area that you want to go, make sure that it's legal to camp there, and know the restrictions of how long you can stay, what's around, whether there are water resources, trash resources, but other than that, I would say just being prepared, making sure that you bring something to pack in your trash, making sure that you understand there won't be any bathroom facilities and how you're going to handle that, and to know for safety, I would advise probably trying to plan so that you can arrive before dark so that you know what you're looking for. And then also determine what you want to do, just having an overall plan of what the goal is, whether that be to get away for solitude or whether that be to go find community. It completely depends on what your goals are. And then I have a giant master checklist of all the bare necessities that we need, and we pack everything up in one day and make sure we have what we need and we hit the road.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you prep your vehicle?
Felicia Fullwood:
Arguably, one of the most important things to do before a long road trip is get your car checked and make sure that you're road ready, because that's something that we didn't do the first time that we drove across the country and we had quite a few downfalls. We got a flat tire, and we went to change our flat tire and we realized that our spare tire did not fit the car. When we went to change it, my boyfriend's like, "This doesn't fit on the vehicle." And I'm like, "What do you mean?" And he's like, "It won't fit," and we had to call somebody. Then we were in an area that didn't have any tires, so we were stranded in a Walmart parking lot for two days in South Dakota in 96-degree heat.
And then we also didn't have good brakes. We started going down the mountains, we were in the Beartooth Mountains, and we started heading back down, and I started to feel a little something going on with the brakes. And we somehow made it down the mountain pass, took it to a mechanic, and he said that we had absolutely no metal left at all and that we were just straight grinding, and he didn't know how we even made it. So needless to stay, we spent about a week and a half of our month road trip stranded because we didn't prepare the vehicle and do our due diligence to check everything.
Shelby Stanger:
So really quickly, what's on this list? How do you get ready? What's this checklist look like?
Felicia Fullwood:
Yeah, yeah. So we try to keep it as minimal as possible. I try to keep a capsule wardrobe when I'm in the van, in terms of clothing, where I only have a week or two worth of outfits that I can kind of mix and match, as well as tons of camera gear. That's what we do, both my boyfriend and I both have a full camera gear full of lenses, audio recording drones, stuff like that. We also just bought two brand new mountain bikes and we put a bike rack on the back, so now we have a bunch of mountain bikes. We have a stand-up paddleboard, we have a pizza oven that we have in the, we have like an overhead compartment, it's a little Ooni pizza oven that we can whip out and make fresh wood-fired pizzas while we're camping.
Shelby Stanger:
I don't even have a wood-fired pizza here. This is amazing.
Felicia Fullwood:
You should get one. We bought it for at home, and then when we realize it's not that hard to travel with, I'm like, "We could bring this with us," and it's a whole nother business you could start while you're on the road.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. There's this event called Camp Shred at the local Cardiff Campgrounds where I live, and it's mostly surf brands, but now there's a whole van life overland section and there was wood-fired pizza ovens and batteries and fridge and-
Felicia Fullwood:
We're inspiring people.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, and coffee solutions that I'd never seen.
Felicia Fullwood:
Awesome.
Shelby Stanger:
It was really cool.
Felicia Fullwood:
I think the biggest part of overlanding and van life and dispersed camping is that you can have all the same comforts from home in a vehicle.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so you bring your pizza oven, you bring the essentials, the pizza oven, the coffee maker.
Felicia Fullwood:
Yes, the toaster oven has been a huge game changer. Instead of having a big oven, you can make cinnamon rolls, cookies, all those little luxuries that you can't usually make while you're camping. It's incredible.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you plug it in?
Felicia Fullwood:
We have an entire power system, actually. My boyfriend built out our van completely from scratch, and we basically have a house battery that's attached to the alternator of our van, so when we drive it charges. And we also have two solar panels up top that continue to give us 24/7 power so we can be off grid for a couple of weeks at a time, as long as it's sunny, which has been fantastic.
Shelby Stanger:
What's your sleep setup while dispersed camping?
Felicia Fullwood:
Sure, so that was probably the biggest thing when we were thinking about building our van is having a comfortable place to sleep. We have a queen-size bed in our van, and it's not one that you can break down and turn into a couch. When we're in the van, most of our time is spent outside, and when we're not, we're sleeping, and I want to be able to sleep well when we're in the van. That was my biggest priority.
Shelby Stanger:
So what do you do for a bathroom?
Felicia Fullwood:
Usually, within the Leave No Trace Principles, we just use the bathroom outside, and then we have the bucket toilet as an emergency system, basically.
Shelby Stanger:
What does that mean?
Felicia Fullwood:
So basically, the bucket that you put a trash bag in and you use wood pellets that are for horse bedding, so it basically turns into sawdust with any liquid, and you're able to just throw that away immediately. And it's the cleanest and, in my opinion, the easiest way to have a bathroom system in a vehicle.
Shelby Stanger:
But sometimes you're not near a trash can for weeks, days?
Felicia Fullwood:
So that's what I meant about it as an emergency situation. One time it happened to us when we were in a severe storm where we literally couldn't get out of our van, and I did have to use the emergency bathroom while out in the woods, but other than that, we just use the bathroom outside.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so when you're in the wild, you just go outside, and you dig a hole and you pack out everything?
Felicia Fullwood:
Yes. Your waste, you bury.
Shelby Stanger:
There's some places where you're going to be hiking or camping like in a canyon where you have to take a wag bag or take everything out?
Felicia Fullwood:
Absolutely, yes. It depends on where you're at and what the regulations are, but yes, you pack out all of your trash, including toilet paper, so there's different ways that you can do it. I just use plastic bags that I will put my toilet paper in and pack that out with us, and that gets packed out with all of our trash and gets thrown away on our way out when we're able to find a trash can, but we typically don't go more than three or four days without checking in at a trail head or something that has somewhere that you're able to dispose of your trash, so that hasn't been an issue for us so far.
Shelby Stanger:
Let's talk about safety. What sort of things do you bring with you, because you are in the middle of nowhere, and a situation where there's an emergency is where you can't extract yourself. So what do you do to really just stay safe so you don't have to involve EMS and you guys can really handle most things by yourselves?
Felicia Fullwood:
For sure, and I think that the biggest thing is to know where you're going and anticipate what could potentially happen. There's a lot of great resources as well, like the Garmin InReach Mini, so if you are going out of service, there's satellite phones available so that you can have contact with the emergency services if you do need it. But for most situations, like we got stuck in Oregon on the coast, I went off of a mountain road and the van was teetering almost to flip, basically, and we tried everything in our power to do it ourselves, but we did end up needing to call a tow truck to get that, but that is when we learned the lesson of if we would've had traction boards, if we would've had a shovel or anything that would've been able to help us prevent needing to call somebody ourselves, we didn't have any of those things, unfortunately.
So I would say to know where you're going, and if you're going somewhere that has sand, make sure you have traction boards. If you're going somewhere that's snowy, make sure you're bringing a shovel. It sounds kind of self-explanatory, but it's not when you're on the fly and you're just trying to get to a camping spot, you don't always think about those things.
Shelby Stanger:
What are the best ways to find spots for dispersed camping?
Felicia Fullwood:
I would say knowing the public land in the area is number one, but also having the right tools and resources available. There's plenty of apps. I love onX Offroad, that's one of my favorite ones, Regrid is another app. The Public Lands app is only like $4.99 in the app store, and you can look on your phone and it gives you a green overlay where there's public land, but they also have public-sourced camping apps that kind of have people leave reviews where they've camped before. There's a lot of apps that kind of let you know where you can park when you're on the road, but there's also apps specifically focused for dispersed camping. Like I said, onX Offroad would probably be my best recommendation there. You can do everything from understand the road, the trail navigation, offline maps, you can save and pinpoint things, but I would say that the public land overlays and being able to determine where public land is near you is by far the most important step to start dispersed camping.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you know where you're allowed to go and where you can't go?
Felicia Fullwood:
Sure. There's so many different types of public land and it depends on where you're at in state. Here in Michigan, we actually don't have BLM, which is the Bureau of Land Management, which is public land out west. It's really popular in Nevada, all out west, but out here, we really have national forest and state forest. So the three places that you can camp are national forest, state forest land, and then BLM land, as well as state game areas, but there's a ton of public resources for you to be able to find this out. They all have their set of rules based on how long you can stay, and it's pretty easy to find that kind of information on their website as well as there's tons of resources out there. I actually have a bunch of resources on my blog, kind of how to figure out where you can camp for free in all of the US and then also specifically in Michigan.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have a story about your most dreamy spot you've found?
Felicia Fullwood:
I do, and it's in California. So two years ago, we were chasing the super bloom, it was like this time of year, and where were we beforehand? I can't remember exactly where we were, but we decided all of a sudden to just send it to California for the super bloom. I was doing a photography job that required us to shoot wildflowers, and it's like the Chorizo Plains, and it's just these mountains that literally turned purple and orange and yellow with wildflowers. Apparently, we caught it on a really crazy year where that typically doesn't happen, but long story short, we up this crazy gnarly road. We don't have a four-wheel drive van. We have an older van that's been beat up, it's not made to go down crazy, gnarly mountain roads, but we just saw what was up there and we were like, "We have to send it up there."
And we took our chances, and it's documented on YouTube, the trail that we took, and I cannot believe to this day that the van made it. And I just remember shaking, white-knuckling it the entire ride up there, and then we got up there and the wildflower bloom was absolutely insane. And then the next morning, we woke up to a cloud inversion of clouds at the sunrise, and it was honestly one of the most insane things I've ever seen in my life, and to be able to just wake up and have that at my front door was insane. It was like the universe was telling me you're exactly where you need to be.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so don't try this at home, but maybe try this at home. I don't know what to tell you.
Felicia Fullwood:
I mean, life's all about getting outside of your comfort zone and doing the things that scare you, and it's like worst case scenario, you would've had to flag someone down and you would've figured it out. It's not like you would've been stranded in the wilderness. We were prepared, and we knew what we were getting ourselves into.
Shelby Stanger:
What happens when you go to a site and it's occupied? How do you pivot?
Felicia Fullwood:
Yeah, so that's why I really love to try to educate people to find your own spots and to not necessarily always go to the ones that you find on the camping apps, especially on anywhere close to a national park, near a holiday, on the weekends. We're lucky that we're able to kind of pick and choose when we camp so we can go during the week where it's less busy, but that oftentimes happens where you arrive at a camping spot and there will be other people. And it depends, if it's a really tight spot where you can only fit one car, you have to keep moving and find another spot. If it feels like the person might be friendly and maybe you guys could camp next to each other, you can talk to them and see how they feel about having a neighbor, but many times people, you'll just wake up and you'll have somebody parked right next to you.
You always have to have a backup plan, and that's why I like to tell people to arrive before it's dark so you're not searching for a camp spot trying to shine a flashlight to see if somebody's in the spot already.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you manage navigation when you don't have service?
Felicia Fullwood:
You download offline maps. onX Offroad is the app that I use the most, and I never go camping without first downloading the area you're in, because even if you have service, it might not be enough service to load the full topographical maps and all the things that you need to be able to see your pinpoints. So downloading offline maps, you can use your navigation just like you would if you were to be online.
Shelby Stanger:
Why do you love dispersed camping?
Felicia Fullwood:
Yeah, I would say the community found with dispersed camping. I met some of my closest friends ever doing this, and most of the people that we've experienced on the road have been incredible people in the community of off-road, overland, van life, dispersed camping, that whole kind of niche. The people are amazing and everybody's after the same goal. Everybody's looking for solitude and wants freedom in life and travel to the most beautiful places while doing it, so it's been amazing. We've met some incredible people.
Shelby Stanger:
I love that dispersed camping can take you to spots off the beaten path, and if you're in a van, it can definitely be a bit more like glamping than camping. I mean, come on, can you imagine eating a fresh pizza from a wood burning oven in the mountains? If you don't have access to a van? Remember that many of the tips and tricks that Felicia talked about can also be applied to tent camping. There was one other thing Felicia and I spoke about that's important when it comes to camping in the wild, making sure you leave no trace. When you're venturing into these natural spaces, it's imperative that you leave them as you've found them, which means pack out everything, including your apple cores. In our conversation, Felicia also mentioned a number of helpful apps and resources. We'll link those up in our show notes. To follow Felicia and find more info about van life and adventuring professionally, you can follow her on Instagram at Felicia_Fullwood, or go to her website, feliciafullwood.com. That's F-E-L-I-C-I-A-F-U-L-L-W-O-O-D.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Piers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hannah Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Motila and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.