Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

by Jessica Bruder

FreeCampsites.net, logged idyllic places in nature where visitors could stay for free, from small city parks to sprawling national forests. Another, AllStays.com, tracked businesses that allow overnight parking, from truck stops to casinos, Cabela’s sporting good outlets and Cracker Barrel restaurants. It also sold a smartphone app dedicated to “Wallydocking,” or boondocking at Walmart. Walmart has long endeared itself to RVers by letting them stay overnight in its parking lots. Some believe founder Sam Walton, an avid bird hunter, started the tradition in solidarity with outdoorsy types. Others think it’s a canny strategy to capture more shoppers. Either way, nomads appreciate the invitation, though it frustrates paid campgrounds and RV parks that don’t like losing business. The policy, however, isn’t in effect everywhere. Some Walmarts are located in cities that ban the practice. Others have revoked the privilege because visitors started overstaying their welcome, setting up barbecues and lawn furniture, building semipermanent encampments. In March 2015, a melee between police and an eight-member family of Christian musicians from Idaho, who’d been living out of their Chevy Suburban in the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter in Cottonwood, Arizona, ended in a struggle over an officer’s gun that left one of the travelers dead. The store started rousting overnighters after that. (“It is so sad that a few morons have to ruin a good deal for everyone,” wrote the editor of...