Urban Boondocking in Venice, CA
I spent a few days in Venice, and had a great time. The RV camping situation is interesting to put it mildly, so I thought I’d talk a bit about how to safely, politely, and (mostly) legally boondock around Venice Beach. It’s a worthwhile stop, if you like small beach towns with an interesting and authentic culture.
Venice is full of full-time RVers. But these are not your typical, independently wealthy, retired or semi-retired, older folks in newish $100k+ rigs towing $30k+ cars that you find amongst the RV park set. Most of the RVs in Venice are twenty to thirty years old, some are converted school buses, others are simply vans with a bed thrown in the back. It’s a mishmash of hippies, soul-searchers, down-on-their-luck working families, and the recently unemployed. And, they’re in the middle of a sort of war with the more gentrified elements of Venice society.
I’d heard that one could boondock legally, and for very cheaply, around Venice beach…but this is not entirely accurate, though many people do it, anyway. Unlike most beach towns around the area, it is actually legal to park an RV overnight on several city streets within Venice (north end of Venice Blvd, 3rd St. west of Rose, and a few little spots scattered around the city), but it’s technically not legal to sleep in an RV overnight. I spoke to one RV owner, an underemployed fellow named Kenn that lives in an older RV with his wife, who had been regularly warned by police against long-term parking around the city.
The key element, then, for me, was to move regularly. I spent each day parked on Venice Beach, either in the lot at the end of Venice Blvd. or at the end of Rose Blvd. Both are charming spots, with the Venice Blvd. location being more quiet and the Rose Blvd. location being more exciting and right on the edge of the majority of Venice Beach activity. Parking for an RV in these city lots costs anywhere from $8 to $18 per day, based on the day (weekends cost more) and when you arrive (before 9AM is several dollars cheaper). This seems to be the modus operandi of many RV residents, as the lots had numerous RVs parked in them each day, many arriving before 8AM to setup shop on the boardwalk selling crafts, artwork, busking, etc.
Each evening, I would leave the park around 10PM or 11PM (closing time seems to be midnight, though the Venice Blvd. location was usually completely empty by 10PM, but I wasn’t bothered by the police who routinely drive by when I stayed until nearly midnight on the night I locked myself out and had to wait for a locksmith to arrive). There were a few RVs that seemed to be permanently parked in each of these Venice Beach lots. I suppose the Venice police are somewhat sympathetic to the plight of these folks, and perhaps as long as they’re quiet and otherwise obey the law, they get away with bending the law a bit. I had no desire to push my luck, and my RV is completely road-worthy, so driving out each night to a quieter and less scrutinized area was no problem for me.
I then spent the night a few miles away, mostly on Culver Blvd., between McConnell and Centinela, on the other side of the walk/bike path median, which provided the perfect balance of space, so neighbors wouldn’t be fighting with me over limited parking space; quiet, because the fast side of Culver Blvd. was across the big grassy median; and safety, because it is in a well-lit residential and commercial area with frequent activity and people driving by all night over on Culver Blvd. I’d wake at 7 or 8 AM, and drive back over to one of the beach lots to spend the day. A number of RVs were parked in the vicinity, but not enough that I think it would offend the neighbors, and most left early each morning to go to the beach or elsewhere for the day.
Dockweiler State Beach, a few miles up the road on Vista Del Mar, provides dump station and fresh water access for $10, and I stopped there once during my several day stay in Venice Beach. Culver Blvd. is near a number of shopping centers, including a grocery on making it easy to pick up groceries and fill water bottles at the drinking water vending machine.
I won’t say that this is a fool-proof way to visit Venice in an RV, but I did have a lot of fun, met a lot of interesting people, and was never cited or approached by police during my several days there.
One more little interesting story about my time in Venice Beach, and more evidence that the residents of Venice are not all pleased by the presence of RVers in their community: When I locked my keys out of the RV and called a locksmith, he nearly hung up on me when I told him I was in an RV in a Venice Beach lot. He simply wouldn’t come out for the typical RV dweller in the city. I had to explain that I was a software developer from the San Francisco area, and was in a rather new, and rather expensive, RV, before he’d agree to come out. To give him credit, he came out quickly, and was apologetic about being rude earlier, and explained that he’d been cheated by RVers in the past, and that, as a group, they don’t have the best reputation for straight dealings in the area.
Seems like there are two sides to the story in Venice, and while I tend to side with the RVers (they just want to exist in Venice, and can’t afford to exist on the usual terms of society, so they’re scraping by the best they can, and the ones I met were genuinely nice and friendly folks who were doing what they could to support themselves honestly), it’s no excuse for cheating folks who provide services, or breaking obviously beneficial laws like dumping laws (there have reportedly been issues with RVers dumping illegally, which is a serious health hazard and extremely disgusting).
Author:
Either pay taxes or take your RV out of Venice. Period.
Soon the laws will be changed and enforced, rendering this blog post useless. Thank god.
Comment by M@X — April 3, 2010 @ 4:10 pm
M@X,
I don’t understand. I do pay taxes. I pay California income tax, federal income tax, and I paid several thousand dollars in state sales tax on my RV, plus more than $500 in registration fees and tags. When I was staying in the Los Angeles area, I was paying sales tax on all of the goods I purchased, and I paid several hundred dollars to city and state parks for parking (Venice Beach city beach park, Dockweiler State Beach, Huntingon Beach, etc.). Every time I fill my tank, I’m paying a significant portion in taxes. I’m not in a particularly high tax bracket at the moment, since my startup is still getting ramped up and so I don’t make a huge amount of money, but I definitely pay taxes on all of it.
What, specifically, do you have a problem with about my post? What do you believe I’ve suggested that would bother you, as a (presumed) resident of Venice? Have you actually read it, or did you just read the title and look at the picture and think you already know what it was going to say?
Also, I will point out that the RVers I met seemed more true to the historic culture of Venice than the more gentrified folks I met living in the fancy new condos and townhomes. It seems to me that if you want to live that sort of lifestyle, you should live in a place where that lifestyle is the culture of the place. There are many such places all around Los Angeles. Santa Barbara, Long Beach, and others had very few hippies and RVers and very little drug culture, etc. Those folks aren’t there to spite you, they’re there because it’s their kind of place. If you have a problem with the culture of Venice, maybe you’re in the wrong place.
Comment by admin — April 4, 2010 @ 4:26 am
The City of Los Angeles cannot afford to pay the police department detectives to investigate murders due to the recession. Yet m@x above delusionally believes that the state can afford to change laws and prosecute people for living in vehicles that were sold as vehicles to be lived in? Good luck m@x. And when will the cops enforce these new laws? In between non-investigation of the murders of 17 year old girls by convicted felons on parole?
We need to get our priorities straight here.
Comment by Dean McAdams — April 13, 2010 @ 7:44 pm
There are many sides to the Venice story of RV and street dwellers. Whatever group M@x may represent, resolving inevitable polarization and avoiding oversimple answers are the greatest challenges.
Some communities (notably, Laguna Beach and Santa Barbara, CA; Eugene, OR) are addressing these issues head-on. Venice is trying to figure it out, with L.A. in tow. Our current times call for equal doses of patience, persistence and positive focus on common goals. I’m grateful for blogs such as this, as they shine the light from an angle we might otherwise miss.
Comment by Doctor Fever — April 16, 2010 @ 5:56 am
I live in my RV in Venice and I love it. Many of the RVers that I know make every effort to obey laws and are genuinely good people. There are, however, some bad apples ruining it for the rest of us.
You mentioned in the article that you spoke to Kenn. He was the guy with long blond hair and a beard. Lived with his wife in a little Dodge Rally. I heard he was killed recently. Venice is nice, but if you stay here long enough you’ll discover it has an ugly underbelly.
Comment by Shadow — April 30, 2010 @ 9:13 am
I’ve been visiting Venice now for a little over a week, in my 21 foot ‘86 Toyota motorhome.. Mixed opinions on this place, but overall nice. Never hassled by the cops but definitely have felt the wrath of some of the residents, who are, understandably, fed up with the swarm of ugly old motorhomes, that really are impossible to ignore. I drove by one high school football field that had only RVs parked from one end of the block to the other – not soccer moms, but beat up old eyesores that the citizens probably shouldn’t have to endure the sight of. My restored old Toyota’s not the prettiest thing on the road, but these were dilapidated shacks that hardly looked operational. I would have liked to respond to the “get the fuck out of town” jeers with ” I’m not a homeless squatter, just travelling through”, but I don’t think it would have mattered anyway..
Comment by Jonathan — August 28, 2010 @ 9:42 am
Agreed completely. Venice is a weird case, and unlike any other city I’ve visited. The fact that there are zero RV parks in Los Angeles (Dockweiler doesn’t count, as it’s incredibly expensive, in the wrong place, and only allows people to stay for 14 days) makes it particularly problematic. Nearly all cities I’ve visited have a population of people that live permanently in RVs, but they’re usually mostly tucked away in extended stay RV parks (that cost a few hundred per month, which puts them into reach of the folks who currently pay $9-$18/day to park in the beach lot in Venice). But, if you want to live in Los Angeles in an RV, you simply don’t have that option.
It’s actually really strange to visit Los Angeles and Venice because in most places, people are excited to see RVs. RVs mean big tourist dollars in most places, but the culture and lack of RV parks in LA/Venice guarantees that the rich RVers skip the city entirely, so all that remains are the folks with no money and ugly old rigs. It’d be simple to solve the problem, I think, by letting extended stay RV parks exist outside of the normal hotel tax requirements. I’ve noticed some cities do that, and I’ve also noticed that LA has much higher than average occupancy taxes, so I think there’s some unintended consequences happening there. But, real estate prices may also be a contributing factor, though San Diego has some great parks with fair prices in reasonably good locations within the city, and the real estate there isn’t dramatically cheaper than LA, so I don’t think that’s a complete explanation.
Comment by admin — August 28, 2010 @ 11:40 am