Camping in a Car in Milwaukee.

April 14, 2008 8:10 PM

Where is a good place to camp out in a car in Milwaukee, WI?

This weekend my fiance and I are taking a trip to Milwaukee. We have a hotel room for one night, but were thinking of camping out for a second night.
We have an SUV that has seat's that fold down and has tinted windows, so we planned on packing blankets and pillows and hanging up a curtain. However, we are stuck on the location of where to camp out. Is there a safe place we can legally camp out in Milwaukee?

posted by Becko to travel & transportation (12 comments total)

Camping is not allowed in Milwaukee County Parks. Plus it's dangerous in many of them.

This is the closest cheap camping I know of - 45 min north.
posted by desjardins at 8:32 PM on April 14, 2008

Oh, I see you're in Rockford so I'm going to assume you're coming from there. Might want to consider a night in Lake Geneva, especially if you're going for the "romantic getaway" feel. You can camp at Big Foot Beach State Park, about 40 miles from Milwaukee.
posted by desjardins at 8:50 PM on April 14, 2008

here's a website with all the campgrounds in milwaukee county - http://www.travelwisconsin.com/directory.aspx?menuid=6

but if you really just want to park somewhere and sleep, just park on a street somewhere and call your car in to the parking checkers. that number is [phone] and you can call between the hours of 8:00 AM and 1:00 AM. you'll need the address of the house you're parked nearest to and your license plate number. if you are staying overnight from saturday night to sunday morning, you don't need to call in because they don't check then. be covert about your setup - some people might be creeped out by seeing someone camped out in front of their house for the night.

that probably wouldn't be a problem in my neighborhood, though. i'd recommend around the 3200 block of north bremen or weil streets - safe, and you probably wont get any looks. plus, there's a huge empty lot there, so you'd only have to contend with people being weirded out by you on one side of the street.

good luck!
posted by binocularfight at 10:19 PM on April 14, 2008

It's dangerous in Milwaukee County Parks? What?

If I were you I would feel safe for most of the night in a Park & Ride lot. Although the sheriff's may bang on your window in the middle of the night, just tell them you were driving through and started to feel sleepy at the wheel. You could also try the County Hospital grounds or the Stadium. There is a camper park here but is really for RVs and isn't free.

Are you looking for something scenic or free?
posted by JJ86 at 6:21 AM on April 15, 2008

Personally, while I've never done it, I'd either drive out of the city to the nearest wayside and stay there, or you could maybe try one of the larger parks near the city like Whitnall. Whitnall has no street lights, so it's easy to catch some shut eye, it's safe from would be criminals, but (as I've never tried spending the night there) it might be patrolled regularly by police.

The other thing that would probably work and be moderately safe would be to find a big box store (target, walmart, etc), park close enough to the night shift workers cars that you won't stand out and you probably won't be bothered.
posted by drezdn at 6:45 AM on April 15, 2008

(please don't beat me for suggesting this, I know they're evil)

As far as I can tell, Wal-mart still allows overnighting in its parking lots, and none of the Milwaukee locations (just google "walmart milwaukee") are on the "no-parking" lists that RV-ers put up online. Bonus: being 24 hours, it's not like you're out there by yourselves.
posted by whatzit at 6:47 AM on April 15, 2008

bah. So what drezdn says, except Wal-mart specifically allows/promotes overnighting.
posted by whatzit at 6:48 AM on April 15, 2008

I see your question asked for places to park "in" Milwaukee. However, if "near" would suffice (for sufficiently large values of "near"), then this question would be incomplete without a reference to the Bong Rec Area. 47 Miles south of Milwaukee, conveniently near I-94, and actually pretty nice from what I hear, though I've never been there, just snickered at the sign as I drove past.
posted by Reverend John at 7:47 AM on April 15, 2008

This is purely theoretical, but near the Summerfest grounds along the lakefront, there are some paid parking lots that allow you to park until 4 a.m. without getting a new ticket. If you used one of these lots, and parked as far away from the street as possible, you might be able to spend the night there.
posted by drezdn at 8:08 AM on April 15, 2008

i would caution you away from most parks, not because they're unsafe, but because they are patrolled rather frequently by the cops. i think that the best bet would be a big box store lot, the park and ride suggestion with a script for a sheriff at the ready, the hospital grounds or picking a city street and calling in your car so you don't get ticketed. let us know how it goes! how terribly exciting!
posted by binocularfight at 8:40 AM on April 15, 2008

i'd recommend around the 3200 block of north bremen or weil streets

man, I wouldn't go west of the river if I were you. I have had different friends robbed at gunpoint. It's even getting bad just east of the river, around UWM.

drezdn has a point - the parking near Summerfest is pretty deserted at night and no one's likely to bother you. Also, park and rides are a good idea. I have, um, a "friend" who spent the night with an ex in the Ryan Rd Park n' Ride off of I-94 (near McDonald's). The "friend's" behavior was flagrantly "corrosive to community mores", but the friend never got caught.

There's an RV park at the State Fairgrounds in West Allis, too. That would definitely be legal, though not particularly cheap and definitely not scenic. Take I-94 to 84th Street and go south.
posted by desjardins at 8:57 AM on April 15, 2008

no offense, desjardins, but everyone who has little experience with riverwest (i.e. the neighborhood west of the river and east of holton, where the 3200 block of bremen and weil lies) likes to be a naysayer. then again, i don't know you at all, and maybe you have spent time here and it's treated you badly. either way, i guess you're right - muggings happen in riverwest. but muggings happen all over this city. they happen all over every city. that doesn't mean you should flee in fear. i've lived in this neighborhood for four years. bad things happen sometimes. mostly, it's an amazing, wonderfully diverse place that i'm proud to call home. i'd sleep in a tent in my front yard. and if i knew you better, becko, i'd invite you to do the same. so in the mean time, i guess you need to decide what makes you feel unsafe, and then choose a spot that presents the least amount of perceived threats. pretty much all of the ideas myself and others have posted are a good bet. just stay away from the parks because you'll get woken up in the middle of the night and asked to mosey on.
posted by binocularfight at 2:15 PM on April 15, 2008