Looking for a Spot to Park Your Tiny House? Here's Where to Find One

The dream of financial freedom and living a simpler life is one of the biggest draws behind the tiny house lifestyle. With a wide range of prices from affordable DIY options to snazzy, upscale, and hi-tech builds, it seems there's a tiny house design for everyone.

But one of the biggest and less-talked-about drawbacks is finding a place to actually park a tiny house. In many places, tiny houses exist in a legal grey zone where they might be built to fly under the radar of local authorities. In most cities, most tiny houses on wheels are treated as recreational vehicles, so most regulations will allow them to be parked on one's property, but prohibit living in them full-time. Alternatively, if they are built on foundations, they will often have to meet local regulations for accessory dwelling units (ADUs), which vary from place to place.

However, this confusing state of affairs is slowly changing as more municipalities and even the International Code Council are rewriting regulations to accommodate the growing interest in tiny houses. As enthusiasm for tiny living continues to grow, so too is a growing list of resources below that can be helpful in finding a place to park that tiny house—either a short or a long-term basis.

RV Parks, National Parks, Campgrounds

If you have a RVIA (Recreation Vehicle Industry Association) certified tiny house, then it's possible to park it anywhere it is legal to park an RV. However, these are more short-term options, as all of these do not allow for long-term stays.

Online Classifieds and Meetups

Besides the usual campgrounds, one can also try to find short- or long-term parking spots via websites such as Craigslist or Meetup. Often, homeowners looking to open up their driveway or backyards to visitors will post something to advertise their available space. Depending on local regulations, it's one way for tiny house owners to temporarily park their home. Alternatively, tiny house owners can attend tiny house Meetups or other similar gatherings to discover and pursue potential leads for parking their home.

Move to a Tiny House-Friendly City or Community

Another possibility is moving to a city, town or even new subdivisions and developments where tiny houses have been legalized. The roster of such municipalities is expanding—from Fresno, California to Spur, Texas; Portland, Oregon, and Lantier, Quebec, many cities are waking up to the fact that tiny homes are one potential way to densify their neighborhoods and offer more affordable housing options. Some of these are taking the form of ADUs or even tiny co-housing communities in someone's backyard.

My Tiny House Parking

My Tiny House Parking is part of the Tiny House Network family of websites, which offers listings for private parking, parking spots on farms or tiny house communities, and RV parks, all conveniently shown on an interactive map.

Tiny House Hosting

Tiny House Hosting is a Facebook group that is dedicated to connecting owners of tiny houses to land that is for rent or for sale. It also allows members to post about tiny houses for rent, as well as listing opportunities for starting up tiny house communities.

Tiny House Map

Created by tiny house builder Dan Louche of Tiny Home Builders, Tiny House Map features a searchable, interactive map that includes communities that are renting out land, as well as posters who are starting to build their own tinys and who are looking for more information, or a place to park.

Ultimately, there are a lot of possible avenues out there to help you find a place to park -- it's a matter of finding out what are the legalities in your particular locale, and connecting the dots between all these sources of information that are out there. To get a bigger picture on the legalization of tiny houses, you can also check out documentaries like Living Tiny Legally, or perhaps explore joining forces with other tiny house advocates to push for updating regulations and building codes to include tiny houses.