10 RV Boondocking Tips - Dry Camping Tips For Newbies to Veterans

How come nobody ever mentions leaving the trailer plugged into the truck for more 12 volt power?
You can run the truck engine a few minutes each day to top off all the batteries on both vehicles and have plenty of battery power to run everything all evening and all night on 12 volts!
Running all your 12-volt stuff off the batteries will not drain your batteries as fast as going through an inverter to make everything run off 110v.
Inverters are not very efficient.
I've done that all summer without a generator or solar panels. And have plenty of battery power to run my lights, my TV, a fan in hot weather and everything else that was 12 volts on my trailer including running the fan all night long. And in the winter running my central heating all night long along with the propane that I refilled every week.
In fact there's all kinds of 12 volt electronics and kitchen appliances you can get that run on 12 volts and a few of them have dual voltage input.

I also take a sponge bath instead of using the shower.

Check battery levels before leaving. Made this mistake once. Thanks for all the other tips.

One should not travel long distance on the highway with a full freshwater tank. When I was taught how to tow a 5thW, it was emphasized strongly to wait until you're close to your final destination until you fill up the freshwater. A full freshwater tank can upset a trailer's center of gravity to such a degree that it will roll on while taking a corner at 65 mph. I always check where I can get water before I leave home. It's not that tough.

I camp solo with my 2 standard poodles, and have only stayed at state parks or Recreation areas. What about safety? I carry, but I'm still kind of scared to go off on BLM land alone.

We do 2 weeks of Burning Man. The ultimate Boondocking trip. You cannot replenish anything. We found that we can make our water last the entire two weeks with this tip.
We keep the pump off until we need water. Turn it on until the system is pressurized. Turn off pump. Usually enough water to do what you need.
2d tip. We can get ice so we have a cooler for only drinks. When ice melts we collect in bucket. Leave it out until it's warm. Use it to wash ourselves.
3rd tip. No pooping in RV. Use nearby porta potty. By end of 2 weeks, we might have full grey water but only half full black water. Collect grey water and dump it in toilet.
4th tip. Leave water heater off to save propane. Only shower in late afternoon. Warm water. Btw, a full tank of propane should last two weeks easy for us. By end of time we use water heater as a hot submarine shower is a reward for getting through the trip.
No grey water EVER on ground. As you say, fill up everything. Take extra everything.
Hope you find this useful.

It’s so sad how poorly people care for disperse camping. Why some of the free dispersed camping is closing.

Create a "written" checklist and use it. Everything that is important goes on it like the 10 "tips" in this video that have been translated to "todo". Just like pilots have and use. Checklists can then evolve over time and relate to your specific rig. If "check battery" is on your list, I recommend adding notes to remind you what you do to "check battery". Before a trip I checked my battery by pushing a button on a panel that displayed "13.6" and I was happy. After getting to camp site I realized that I really needed to have removed "shore power" or have thrown the AC breakers off before reading the panel so I read real battery charge and not the output of the battery charger. Another item to have on real checklist is my last one which is "Check under vehicle (towing and towed)" at time of departure. Here a note might state "Get on hands and knees" as this check is not just a "walk around" view. Maybe there is a rock you carefully drove over that you want to remind yourself to avoid when you are starting up; not just that one of your jacks is still down which can be seen by "walk around". On your belly will discover one of your kids's balls that rolled to the center of the underside that you won't catch unless you are on your belly. Top 10 items are great start and having it in writing and with you helps ensure things are checked the way you want things checked/done. I would bet that almost everyone has a "mental" checklist and almost no one has it written, available and used including myself. Thanks for the video.

I backpacked and slept in my car or on the grass near my car. I got a little trailer now but still not plugged in just parked here. I don't even have a truck so I can't move it. Not an adventure just unfortunate

A lot of parks do not allow dumping of grey water on the ground, so using your grey

Need to cover that battery. The heat and sunlight will deteriorate it fast

Great video and thank you for sharing some awesome tips. I have purchased a truck camper for boondocking and look forward to using all your tips.

Getting into boondocking with a camper. But there are some nights when hiking I decided not to come back to the camper due to bivy camping on the trail. What would you do if leave your camper for a couple of days and the temperature gets cold enough to freeze? What would be your suggestion about preventing the pipes and tanks from freezing? Should I use running water in the camper or not, or a hybrid. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

I never thought to take my stabilizer bars off!

Just sold my sailboat yrs of sailing just bought a Rv getting ready for a trip from west coast to east coast ,,glad I found your channel extremely helpful cheers mste

Use common sense!!

Microwave = Glamping..🤣

Thank you so much for creating this video

Sounds like a huge pain in the ass just to hang out in the brush.

Driving semi I have used hand sanitizer to clean dishes and silverware. Followed by a wet cloth rinse. Clean, of course.
Might save a lot of water.

I use an “extend a stay” on my Class C. It allows me to first use portable propane tanks, before hooking into the RV LP.

Seeing the same drone shot going by a camper and then a tree gets annoying. Other than that I really appreciate the information!

Great tips 👌

Thank Youso much.

Just found your channel, great video!!! Well put together, really solid information. Definitely learned a few things watching. Will use the grey water idea for putting out campfires going forward.

Great video!

The provincial parks do not allow you to bring firewood from outside the area because it can introduce non native species of insects or plant diseases. You are also expected not to take firewood from live trees. How do you apply a similar "no trace" practice to boondocking?

Food is a big one as well bring along some M.R.E works great look them up if ur new and don't know but it's food in a bag that military uses hope I explained that right. Anyways I'm new to boondocking. Hey great channel. I'm trying to build mine. Have a great day

Before you do the test run on the side of your house check your local ordinance. Many municipalities do allow storage of your camper on the side of your house, but they do not allow anybody living in the camper while it is stored at your house.

Basically pull a camper but don't use it haha. Jkjk. We are about to buy our first camper and we are super excited, hence why I'm here.

Good idea on the grey water!

You also want to make sure you don't have any propane tanks and just to let your generator to run everything and get rid anything that runs off of propane and put everything in that runs off from electricas so when you're stranded on the middle of nowhere you don't have to worry about what am I going to cook use to cook food how am I going to keep the fridgerator and freezer cold and this way you only have to rebook to a guy enough power to run the 850 watt split air conditioner heat instabeauty run all those toys I want to be able to watch like the TV and my phone and everything I don't even use propane for grill I use burkes in little pieces wood and I save thousands that way. And I even grow some of my own food. Yes bring extra fuel called solar panels just in case your solar panels and enough make sure you have a few extra solar panels to help charge your electric generator charge your batteries for your inverter and make sure when you go out camping just kiss you out of there for a couple years have no food for that even if you're only going up there for a couple weeks or a couple months because you know things can pop up some things can go wrong but if you have electric generators electric converters and batteries you should be just fine with everything else. It's called being smart about things.

35 gallons a day I got these 5-gallon jugs that you got your 5-gallon jugs having three for those per person that's 20 a person.

Thanks for the great tips. Your tip about disconnecting the weight-distribution springs, probably cannot be over emphasized. Especially when YT is loaded with tales of RVers breaking their frames on Travel Trailers.

yes your a good man..
a smart man
nice to meetcha and we will sub you !!
so with us we only boondock thats it !!
so anything that can make our lives easier im all about it
so we hate citi livin
thats why we put 1k watts of solar on our jayco eagle 332 travel trailer
with lithium batteries
as long as we got sun we got tons of power which runs everything in the rv
overcast we switch to generator wich we run all night then back to solar all day
our storage has about 25 casses of bottled water for drinkin
just pop 10 bottles in the fridge thats that .
about 22 bottles of propane for cookin outside for that coleman grill
that buddy heater yep got those too.
alot of my ideas i got from u.
i can stay off grid for almost 7 months at a time
before i need to hit a store or a dump station.

Wow....RVers definitely don't camp the way I do. 3-5 gallons of water per day? That's nearly a week's worth of water for me. I guess if you have the ability to carry that much, it's a great idea to do so.

Even though you are out in the woods, choose a slight where you have a good view of the sky as well as a lot of trees. We learned this the hard way. We chose a spot that had lots and lots of trees. When night fall came, we took a walk up the road at night. When we came to a clearing, the night sky was breath taking!! From then on, we chose sites where we had good shade and a beautiful view of the sky!!!

Wow thank you for all of the great ideas! I'm going to be purchasing a Colman 1200rk in September and be a weekend worrier so thank you for the tips.

If I’m gonna not have electricity and water, I’d rather use my tents. Makes no sense to me taking an RV that far out to live priming

Awesome information. Ty

What is blm land, black lives matter? What does blm stand for

when washing dishes outside catch the rinse water in a container to use to flush toilet

Chain saw, fast setting concrete, get a grip man; waste of time video. 👎

i bought a tank for water on Amazon 30 gal ad transfer pump

The black water tank should not be empty when you set out. It should have at least 5 gal of water in it.
Maybe bring swimming suit for outdoor showering.

We use spray bottles to wash our dishes. One diluted soap, one rinse. We also use minnie string lights inside the camper to give us enough light to get around the camper at night.

This was one of the more informative videos I’ve watched- thank you!

Can you dig a waste leeching field while boon docking

I think I will do mostly boondocking camping when I get my trailer. This offered some great info! Thank you!

I have that exact red power inverts.