RV camping on your Archuleta County land can still need a permit

Owning the land does not automatically settle how you may camp on it. RV and tiny-home camping on residential property needs a temporary-use permit for the camping season each year. A permanent home follows a different path and requires building permits.

This trips up people buying land in stages. The plan is usually to camp first and build later, which the county may well allow, but only as a permit route tied to a season, not as quietly living in an RV year after year. The difference shows up the moment a neighbor or an inspector starts asking.

So before hauling in a trailer, ask about the temporary-use permit, the season it covers, sanitation, water, fire restrictions, and access. Then check whether the parcel’s zoning or subdivision rules add another layer, or whether it sits inside a town with its own restrictions on top of the county’s.

The land can be fully yours and the use can still need county permission. Sorting that out before the first weekend keeps a hopeful trailer setup from becoming a code-enforcement file later on.