Preparing to Dry Camp/Boondocking

Preparing to Dry Camp/Boondocking

CORRECTION: Our inverter is 4000w peek / 2000w Pure Sine Wave

With the purchase of the Winnebago Micro Minnie 2106FBS, the Two Tired Teachers prepare the travel trailer for dry camping. Sharon, one of the Two Tired Teachers, notes that we will be using the term dry camping rather than boondocking. The teachers plan on being in actual campsites, rather than dispersed camping.

The Two Tired Teachers grew up dry camping. They had a tent, a lantern, and a Coleman stove.

Most, RVs are self-contained -- they have a bathroom, a way to prepare and store the food, and lights. The holding tanks provide both fresh water and a place for waste. The RV is self-contained.

We wanted to modify that so that we would have more of the creature comforts.

The first thing MiLena had to do was prepare mentally. It took several years for her to come around to the idea of dry camping.

One of the early things Sharon did was research power sources. Yes, the RV does have lights, but they are running off the battery. We need more power.

The battery in your RV gives you DC power. It will run the fan on your furnace, and it will run the lights. We wanted some electric outlets, and those are AC power. We needed an inverter.

Now the question was whether to use a gas generator or solar. With solar several years ago, you needed to piece everything together, and it was a complicated process.

With the passage of time, more gas generators that were quiet and efficient came on the market. The generators are not much louder than a normal conversation. We purchased a Westinghouse 2200
watt inverter generator. It should be safe for all electronics you want to power.

Once everything is installed, solar is free power. We really want to use solar. Sharon gives a brief simplified explanation of solar power.

Sharon wanted to put it together herself, but she had to have help. A friend and she installed the solar for our Micro Minnie. The solar panel on the roof will charge while we are driving; however, we like forests; that's the reason we have two portable solar panels.

Another thing we wanted was access to air conditioning while we are dry camping. For that, we needed a soft start for the AC. With the solar it will run, but it will quickly drain the battery. We can plug into the generator to cool off the trailer and to use when we've had several really cloudy days.

The water system also has to be prepared for dry camping. The way we got it ready was by sanitizing the fresh water tank. We sanitized by running bleach through the lines. You can bypass this by using bottled water.

The last step is to try out what you've installed. During this first trip, with lots of rain, we made it 48 hours without plugging in to the 30 amp power at the park.