How to find observing sites?

Well, o.k., at least I hope this question isn't as boring as "what telescope
should I buy?". :-)

I'm getting back into observing after a hiatus of 30 years. (Yeah, I know,
gak.)
Getting a decent scope for Xmas. No questions on that front...yet.

But, I live in a city, and the sky in my back yard is...well, I'd
guess magnitude 3; might be worse than that. So my new scope
is (oops, I mean will be) very portable, and I expect to do most
of my viewing elsewhere. Especially since DSOs is my thing.
Or at least it was 30 years ago.

So I have a stupid question. I know I can find much better skies
within, say, 30 minutes of here, but how should I go about finding specific
sites that are (a) open to the public after dark, (b) safe, (c) whatever
other factors I need to consider? Parks and such seem
like a good choice, but I can't find any parks that (according to their
web sites) are open after dark. (There might be some, but many web sites don't
even say.) Is there some category of site that I'm not thinking of?
In short, any suggestions? I'm willing to do the leg work but I'm not
sure where to start.

Thanks.

Mike Keith
Word play, math, music:
http://users.aol.com/s6sj7gt/mikehome.htm