Camping is 30$ a night.  How do you camp?

Everything within 1 mile of:
Lake Tahoe
Truckee River
Taylor Creek
Upper Truckee River
Fallen Leaf Lake
is considered to be designated recreation area and as such camping is only allowed in the roughly 10 forest service campgrounds and privately owned campgrounds available.  Furthermore there is almost as much private land as public land in the Tahoe Basin so hows one to save some money?

Well there are a few places on forest service land in the mountains above the lake that are cheaper and even free.  At the north end of the lake is Watson Lake Campground but because of the noise if you can sleep in your rig there are unpaved pullouts just off  FH74 on the way there. On the west end of the lake is Blackwood Canyon which has both free and low cost camping.  The low cost camping gets you a picnic table and a better parking spot and is on the unpaved road the forks off to the right as the paved road crosses a bridge.  At the south end of the lake low cost camping is available at Big Meadow, these are walk in sites however.  If you are hiking backpacking you can pitch a tent within 300 feet of the Tahoe Rim Trail, provided you are on public land, not inside city limits, and are following leave no trace practices (generally 200 yds from any water/meadows, 100 yds from trails, roads and trailheads, pack everything out).

I've taken the unusual step in making my Honda Fit into a mini RV.  The following is not reccomended if you plan on using the back seat as this will eventually damage it but here is how I configured a bed behind the forward oriented front passenger seat:

This makes a 5'10 inch bed, for someone like me who side sleeps in fetal position this is just fine.
The layers are exaggerated for visibility.  At the bottom is a seven foot foam pad which is wrapped around a tent bag at the well end to fill the gap.  Above this is a 4 foot Cabela's Dog Bed.  The yellow layer is a coleman peak 1 winter sleeping bag. The brown oval represents a pillow and the three straight lines are 2 thick fleece blankets and a thin blanket (red).

I hope to leave soon to do some more hiking.  I will try to get my hike posts up by next Saturday.