Best RV Boondocking Gear: What Actually Worked After More Than a Year Off-Grid
When you’re preparing to boondock in an RV, it’s easy to spend a lot of money on equipment you think you’re going to need.
The harder question is: Which purchases will you still be happy with a year later?
By the time we filmed this video, we’d been full-time RVing for about 18 months and had spent roughly 13 of those months boondocking. We’d camped in the desert, dealt with summer heat, spent time at high elevations and even found ourselves caught in freezing weather.
Along the way, we made some mistakes. We bought some things differently than we probably would today.
But we also made a few purchases that turned out to be absolute workhorses.
For Part 1 of our boondocking setup, we’re looking at two of them: our dual-fuel generator and our truck-mounted fresh water system.
These aren’t products we tested for a weekend. They’re pieces of equipment we actually depended on while living off-grid.
Our Champion Dual-Fuel Generator
Reliable electricity is one of the first things you need to figure out if you’re planning to spend significant time boondocking.
Our solution was a Champion dual-fuel generator.
Our Keystone Bullet travel trailer has one air conditioner, and the generator has been able to handle our needs remarkably well. During hot summer weather, there were times when we ran the air conditioner for hours.
The generator handled it.
We’ve also depended on it in cold weather when the furnace was working overtime.
For us, this generator became much more than an occasional backup power source. It became an important part of our off-grid setup.
Why We Wanted a Dual-Fuel Generator
When we originally bought the generator, having both gasoline and propane capability seemed like a good idea because our trailer already carried propane.
We figured that flexibility might come in handy.
What we didn’t expect was that we’d end up running the generator almost exclusively on propane.
After breaking it in with gasoline, we added a third 20-pound propane tank to our setup. From that point on, propane became our normal generator fuel.
It simplified things considerably because we didn’t need to carry a separate gasoline can just for the generator.
That’s one of those things we couldn’t have predicted before we started boondocking. Sometimes the way you think you’ll use a piece of equipment and the way you actually use it after months on the road are very different.
RV-Ready Power
One feature we appreciate is the RV-ready 30-amp connection.
The generator also provides standard 120-volt outlets, a 12-volt outlet and connections that allow compatible generators to be run in parallel.
Most of the time, however, our setup is simple.
Connect the propane, start the generator and plug in the RV.
That’s exactly what we want from equipment we’re using regularly.
How Has It Handled High Elevations?
One concern people sometimes have about generators is performance at higher elevations.
We wondered about that too.
Our experience has been reassuring.
We’ve used this generator at elevations of roughly 8,500 to 9,000 feet. During one particularly memorable night, we were around 8,700 feet when the temperature dropped to about 14 degrees.
The generator started.
It ran.
And it kept running while we needed the furnace.
That’s the sort of experience that builds confidence in a piece of equipment.
A Generator We Could Depend On
Over time, our generator became our reliable power source for both extremes—keeping the air conditioner running when it was miserably hot and supporting our electrical needs when the furnace was working hard in freezing weather.
We’ve also appreciated its overload protection and the fact that the manual and parts information were actually useful.
Are there other generators that might work equally well?
Certainly.
We can only tell you what we’ve personally used.
And after more than a year of extensive boondocking, ours had never let us down.
That’s why it made our list of rock-solid purchases.
Don’t Forget Generator Noise
Noise is another important consideration when choosing a generator for camping.
A generator may produce all the electricity you need, but if everyone around you can hear it from hundreds of yards away, you probably aren’t going to be the campground’s most popular neighbor.
We specifically wanted a generator intended for RV use rather than a loud construction-style generator.
When you’re camping on public land or near other RVers, being considerate of your neighbors matters.
Before purchasing any generator, check its current specifications and the generator rules for wherever you plan to camp. Generator-hour and noise requirements can vary from one campground or public-land area to another.
Our Other Boondocking Essential: Extra Fresh Water
Electricity is only half the equation.
The other major limitation when you’re camping without hookups is water.
Our trailer’s fresh water tank holds about 40 gallons. That sounds like quite a bit until two people are living in the RV, washing dishes, showering, flushing the toilet and using water every day.
Meanwhile, you may still have room remaining in your gray and black tanks when the fresh tank is getting low.
That means running out of fresh water can determine how long you can remain at a boondocking site.
We wanted another option.
Our 47-Gallon Truck-Mounted Water Tank
Our solution was a rigid 47-gallon fresh water tank mounted in the bed of the truck.
This has turned out to be one of our favorite boondocking purchases.
Instead of packing everything up and moving the trailer when we need fresh water, Ed can take the truck to a water source, fill the auxiliary tank, return to camp and transfer the water into the RV.
For long-term boondocking, that makes life considerably easier.
Why We Chose a Rigid Water Tank
There are several ways to carry additional fresh water.
Some RVers use individual jugs. Others use large barrels or flexible water bladders.
We chose a rectangular rigid tank because it fit our truck and gave us a permanent system that was easy to use.
The tank lies flat in our short-bed truck and is secured in place. That configuration also leaves us some usable storage space above it.
Once installed, it’s simply there whenever we need it.
Adding a 12-Volt Transfer Pump
Carrying 47 gallons of water isn’t especially useful if you can’t easily get that water from the truck into the RV.
So our system includes a 12-volt water pump.
One nice bonus is that the pump is the same basic type used in our RV. That means it could potentially serve as a replacement if our trailer’s water pump failed.
The auxiliary tank feeds the pump, which connects to a hose used to transfer water into the trailer.
Ed also added quick-connect fittings over time to make filling and transferring water faster and easier.
That’s another lesson we’ve learned from full-time RVing: your setup doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect on day one.
Use it.
Figure out what annoys you.
Then improve it.
Venting the Fresh Water Tank
A water tank also needs to breathe properly while it’s being filled and emptied.
Ed created a vent system and routed the vent hose down through the truck bed. The end is protected so insects and debris can’t easily get into the system while air can still move as needed.
It’s a small part of the installation, but those little details are what turn a basic water tank into a system that’s convenient to use regularly.
How We Power the Transfer Pump
We considered hardwiring the pump into the truck but ultimately decided against tapping into an electrical circuit without being certain it could safely handle the load.
Instead, our pump uses the truck’s 12-volt accessory outlet.
It’s not the fanciest solution in the world.
But it works.
And sometimes that’s a very good reason to leave something alone.
One of Ed’s favorite observations applies nicely here:
Anything tinkered with long enough will eventually cease to function.
When something works reliably, there comes a point when you stop redesigning it.
Don’t Forget How Heavy Water Is
There’s one very important consideration with any auxiliary water system:
Water is heavy.
Our 47-gallon tank holds roughly 390 pounds of water when completely full, in addition to the weight of the tank and associated equipment.
That affects your truck’s payload.
We generally don’t drive around unnecessarily with a full tank. The purpose is to fetch water while we’re already set up for boondocking, bring it back to camp and transfer it into the RV.
Before adding any large auxiliary water tank to your own rig, make sure you understand your truck’s payload capacity and the weight of the rest of your cargo.
What About RV Water Bladders?
Flexible water bladders are another popular choice for boondockers.
We haven’t personally used one, so we can’t give you a genuine long-term review of them.
We have watched other campers use them, though, and decided that a rigid tank better suited the way we wanted to handle water.
A bladder certainly has an advantage when it comes to storage because it can be folded away when empty. Our concern was that transferring the water appeared more cumbersome, and we preferred having a permanent tank and pump system ready whenever we needed it.
That doesn’t mean a bladder is a bad solution.
It simply wasn’t the solution we chose.
The Gear That Makes Boondocking Easier
People sometimes look at boondocking and imagine that living without hookups must be difficult.
For us, having the right systems changed that considerably.
When we need electricity, we have the generator.
When we’re getting low on fresh water, we can take the truck, fetch another load and pump it into the trailer.
Those two systems remove two of the biggest limitations of camping without hookups.
And that’s really the secret we’ve discovered about long-term boondocking.
It isn’t necessarily about owning enormous amounts of specialized equipment. It’s about identifying the problems that repeatedly force you to move or disrupt your stay and finding reliable ways to solve them.
Would We Buy Them Again?
Absolutely.
After more than a year of boondocking, both the generator and auxiliary fresh water system had proven themselves repeatedly.
They weren’t purchases sitting unused in a storage compartment.
We depended on them.
The generator got us through summer heat, high elevations and freezing temperatures. The water system allowed us to replenish our fresh water without breaking camp.
Those are the purchases we consider worthwhile—the ones that make RV life easier every time we use them.
And these two certainly earned their place in our boondocking setup.
This is only Part 1 of our boondocking gear series. We have more equipment and lessons from life without hookups to share, including some purchases that worked wonderfully—and probably a few things we’d do differently now.
We’ll see you down the road…and Over the Hills!
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