American Girl Mine Road Dispersed Camping

Free camping found in Southern California. In this video, we show you three separate free camping locations in Southern California. All three of the free camping locations shown in this video are on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land with a 14 day stay limit. Grid coordinates for the ultimate free camping location featured in this video are as follows: 32.832134, -114.815018

Verizon cellular service clocked in at 98.3 Mbps download speed and 8.09 Mbps upload speed. AT&T cellular service clocked in at 57.3 Mbps download speed and 3.58 Mbps upload speed. T-Mobile cellular service clocked in at 25.3 Mbps download speed and 14.7 Mbps upload speed.

The area is easy to find. It is located just off of I-8 and Ogilby Road. There is pavement all the way until you arrive at American Girl Mine Road which is a well maintained gravel road.. Signage is poor but you will know that you are in the right place as soon as you cross the railroad tracks. The area is to the east. It is flat and will easily accommodate any size unit. The rules are fairly basic. Try to keep a good distance from your neighbor (there is plenty of room available), CLEAN UP after your pet, DO NOT dump your grey (or sewer) on the ground and pack your garbage out. Leave it how you found it. You will find that others have respected this area. It is clean and safe.

Fresh GOOD water can be obtained FREE at the Wells Grey Rest Area located about 4 miles west on I-8. You can dump your holding tanks for a fee at the Chevron Service Station in Pilot Knob about 10 miles east or in Yuma about 20 miles east.

Our Verizon cell and Wifi worked very well. There are some OTA television stations and, of course, satellite will work very well.

There are mining ruins, a ghost town, rock hounding, ATV/Off Roading including The Imperial Sand Dunes near by. Some interesting/odd places such as “The Valley of the Names” as well as hiking and climbing nearby.

Be aware, it can get windy on occasion. Desert sunrises and sunsets are beautiful. The night sky here is muted a little by light pollution from near by Winterhaven and Yuma to the east and Mexicali to the west but still pretty nice.

American Girl Mine Road isn’t the only access to this very large area. There are a couple more entries a bit farther north off of Ogilby Ed. Permission is only required for parking on the small patches of private land in this large area. Saw a video that claims you must be within 300 ft of the “marked” roads (posts with a marking like EC592), but I never saw an official looking vehicle around for the nearly 2 weeks I was there. Can get very windy at times, so keep your eye on the weather forecasts. I rated it high because I like riding my fat bike on the roads and ATV paths in and around the nearby mountains. Tumco ghost town is worth checking out if you have time. Close to all the conveniences of Yuma.I have been there twice, both times in mid March,

We spent three nights here. There were quite a few others but there’s so much space! Road is in level and the side roads are good albeit a bit rocky. Have four bars LTE with Verizon. It’s been windy every day but warm and sunny. Great place to spend a few nights, near Yuma, and right off of I-8. There is a train that rolls by and toots his horn but it’s not too bad.

This is a huge area for any size camper. The main road in is in great condition but most of the side roads need a 4 x 4 to travel on. Although, we did see some good size campers on some of those roads. If you enjoy exploring for rocks, this place is amazing! We enjoyed searching for “treasures” every day. Yuma is the closest town for getting groceries, doing laundry, etc.

Lots of room to spread out.

30 minutes from Yuma. Garbage dump and freshwater are 4 miles west at the Interstate Rest Area.
It is convenient as it is in the middle.
Propane at CAL Ranch for the best price as of today's date.
Laundry, showers ($10), dump ($15) ice cream, and local history at the Gold RV Park 4 miles up Ogleby Rd. Wed-Sunday.
Mail-Winterhaven P.O.
Amazon Lockers available at GNC in Yuma
$6 parking fee at the border unless you park out on the road and walk-up.

I hope that is helpful.

We stayed here after RTR and the access with the 5th wheel was easy, really any size rig could fit here. The trick is to move onto a side dirt road before pulling into a spot in the desert since there are "little earthen hills" on American Girl Mine Road from the road grater. Saw very little trash and there were not too many off-road vehicles around (a few more on the weekends than during the week). Right before the turn onto AGM Road there is a double train track. We hardly ever heard the trains since we went pretty far towards the mountains. I downloaded the "BLM route of travel map for Eastern Imperial County California" (pdf file) and used the map for a lot of walking/hiking into the mountains. There was a lot of wind the first 2 days and than again for 3 days when a cold front came through. It seemed to be stronger near the mountains, but it was still better than being in "real winter weather". There is free water and trash service at the rest area (about 3.5 miles west of exit 159) in the middle of the interstate. Our location was at 32.843117,-114.813538. The area is a great mostly quiet place to go to Los Algodones for medical or dental..... Our Verizon hotspot worked fine without a booster. We even watched the superbowl without any problems....