The Best Boondocking Gear We Bought After 18 Months of Full-Time RV Living
When we first started preparing for full-time RV living, we really didn’t know exactly what we would need.
You can research. You can read reviews. You can watch other RVers and make lists of everything they recommend. But until you’ve actually spent months living in your RV without hookups, it’s hard to know which purchases will become indispensable—and which ones you’ll wonder why you ever bought.
After 18 months of full-time RV living, including more than a year of boondocking, we had a much better idea.
Some purchases didn’t work out quite the way we’d hoped.
Others became what we called our rock-solid purchases: things we bought before we really knew what we were doing and discovered, after months on the road, that we’d absolutely buy them again.
Two of the best were our dual-fuel generator and our truck-mounted fresh water system.
Neither one is particularly glamorous.
But if you’re planning to spend a significant amount of time boondocking, reliable power and fresh water can make the difference between constantly worrying about resources and simply enjoying where you’re camped.
Why Long-Term Boondocking Changed Our Perspective
By the time we made this video, we’d been boondocking for about 13 months.
We’d camped in the desert, stayed at higher elevations, dealt with summer heat and gotten caught in freezing weather.
That’s quite a bit different from testing a piece of RV equipment for a weekend.
Our gear had to work repeatedly.
That’s why these two purchases stood out.
Our Champion Dual-Fuel Generator
One of our most important purchases was a Champion dual-fuel generator.
Our Keystone Bullet travel trailer is about 30 feet long and has one air conditioner. We needed a generator capable of handling that load when we were camping without hookups.
Our generator did it.
We used it during hot summer weather when we needed to run the air conditioner for hours at a time, and we depended on it during cold weather when our furnace was working overtime.
It became our reliable backup power source.
Why We Bought a Dual-Fuel Generator
When we were originally shopping for a generator, Ed liked the idea of having two fuel choices.
The trailer already carried propane, so buying a generator capable of running on either gasoline or propane seemed to give us additional flexibility.
The funny thing is that we didn’t end up using it quite the way we’d expected.
Ed initially broke the generator in using gasoline.
After that?
We ran it on propane.
Instead of carrying a gasoline can, we added another 20-pound propane cylinder to our setup. That gave us three propane tanks and meant we didn’t have to deal with storing gasoline.
The generator may have been capable of using two fuels, but in everyday life, propane became our preferred choice.
A Generator That Actually Powered Our RV
The generator included a 30-amp RV outlet, two standard 120-volt outlets and a 12-volt outlet, along with connections that allowed compatible generators to be run in parallel.
But specifications on a box weren’t what mattered most to us.
What mattered was whether it worked when we needed it.
And ours did.
We ran our RV air conditioner with it during hot weather.
We also used it at high elevations.
During one particularly memorable trip, we were at roughly 8,700 feet when we were caught in a snowstorm. The temperature dropped to around 14 degrees, and our furnace was running constantly.
The generator started and kept running.
That experience alone did a lot to convince us we’d made the right purchase.
Why Generator Noise Mattered to Us
Noise was another consideration when we chose our generator.
When you’re boondocking, you may have a lot of open space around you, but sound carries.
And nobody wants to be the camper whose generator can be heard throughout the entire area.
We specifically wanted something designed with RV use in mind rather than a loud construction-style generator.
It was better for us, better for our neighbors, and made the whole boondocking experience more pleasant.
Before buying any generator today, we’d recommend checking its current specifications and the generator rules wherever you plan to camp. Campgrounds and public lands can have their own quiet hours and generator restrictions.
One Feature We Were Glad Wasn’t Locking
Our generator’s RV power connection didn’t lock into place.
That might sound like a disadvantage.
Then one day we learned why it could actually be useful.
Ed forgot to unplug the trailer from the generator before I drove away in the truck.
Whoops.
Fortunately, the plug simply pulled out.
Had it been locked firmly in place, we might have had a much bigger problem.
Sometimes you discover the advantages of a feature in ways you definitely didn’t plan!
Was the Generator Worth the Money?
Our generator wasn’t cheap.
We paid around $1,000 for it at the time.
There were less expensive generators available, but after more than a year of relying on ours, we considered it money well spent.
It handled our air conditioner, helped keep us comfortable during freezing weather and provided dependable backup power whenever solar wasn’t enough.
For our style of full-time boondocking, it became one of the most important pieces of equipment we owned.
The Other Boondocking Essential: Fresh Water
Electricity is only half the equation when you’re camping without hookups.
Eventually, you need water.
Our travel trailer had a 40-gallon fresh water tank. That sounds like a lot until you’re living in the trailer full-time.
You’re using water to wash dishes, take showers, flush the toilet, cook and handle everyday cleaning.
Sooner or later, the fresh tank gets low.
We didn’t want to pack everything up and move the entire trailer every time we needed water.
So Ed built a system that allowed us to go get water with the truck and bring it back to the RV.
It turned out to be one of our best boondocking decisions.
Our 47-Gallon Truck-Mounted Water Tank
We installed a 47-gallon rigid water tank in the bed of our pickup.
That size worked particularly well for us because it was slightly larger than the trailer’s 40-gallon fresh water tank.
Ed mounted the tank horizontally in the truck bed on a piece of plywood with sides and secured it with a strap.
Laying it down also allowed us to preserve some usable storage space above it.
Once installed, it simply stayed there.
Adding a 12-Volt Transfer Pump
Carrying water was only useful if we could easily get it from the truck into the trailer.
For that, Ed installed a 12-volt water pump.
The pump was the same basic type used in an RV water system, which gave us another little advantage: in an emergency, it could potentially serve as a replacement for the trailer’s own water pump.
The tank fed into the pump, and we used a drinking-water-safe hose to transfer water into the RV.
When our trailer’s fresh water tank started getting low, Ed could drive the truck to a water source, fill the auxiliary tank, come back to camp and pump the water directly into the trailer.
No moving the RV.
No breaking camp.
That one system made extended boondocking considerably easier.
Improving the Water System Over Time
Like a lot of RV projects, the water system evolved as we used it.
Ed added a vent system to the tank so air could move properly as the tank filled and emptied.
He also changed the original screw-type connection to a quick-connect fitting.
That wasn’t a dramatic modification, but it made filling and transferring water much faster and easier.
Those are the kinds of little improvements you discover only after living with a system for a while.
You build something.
You use it.
You find the annoying parts.
Then you fix them.
Eventually, you end up with a setup that works very well for the way you travel.
Powering the Water Pump
Ed considered hardwiring the transfer pump into the truck.
Ultimately, he decided against modifying a circuit when he wasn’t completely comfortable with the electrical load.
Instead, he powered the pump using a 12-volt outlet in the truck.
Was it the fanciest possible solution?
No.
Did it work?
Yes.
And sometimes that’s the better answer.
One of our favorite sayings is:
Anything tinkered with long enough will cease to function.
Once something works reliably, there’s a lot to be said for leaving it alone.
Why We Didn’t Travel With the Water Tank Full
Forty-seven gallons of water is heavy.
A full tank adds roughly 390 pounds of water alone, before counting the tank and equipment.
That is a significant amount of weight to carry around unnecessarily.
So the tank wasn’t intended to stay full while we traveled from one destination to another.
We used it as a water-fetching system while we were camped.
When our trailer needed fresh water, we’d find a suitable potable water source, fill the truck tank, return to camp and transfer the water.
That gave us the benefit of carrying a large quantity of water without routinely hauling all that extra weight down the highway.
Rigid Water Tank vs. Water Bladder
We’d seen other boondockers use collapsible water bladders.
We didn’t.
That’s important because we couldn’t give a firsthand review of how well they worked.
From what we’d observed, Ed preferred the rigid tank. He liked having a permanently installed system that could be filled, pumped out, cleaned and sanitized much like the rest of our RV water system.
The rigid tank also worked naturally with our transfer pump.
A water bladder certainly has advantages—particularly the ability to fold it up when it’s empty—but our tank worked so well for us that we had no reason to change it.
Why Extra Water Made Boondocking So Much Easier
One of the misconceptions about boondocking is that once your fresh water tank is empty, your stay is over.
It doesn’t have to be.
If you have a way to transport fresh water back to your RV, the fresh tank no longer determines how long you can remain in one location.
You still have to manage your gray and black tanks, of course, but being able to replenish fresh water gives you considerably more flexibility.
For us, going out occasionally to fetch water wasn’t a major inconvenience.
It was simply part of boondocking.
And having the right equipment made it easy.
The Gear That Proved Itself
After more than a year of boondocking, our generator and auxiliary water system had both earned permanent places in our setup.
The generator gave us dependable backup power when solar couldn’t meet our needs.
The water tank allowed us to replenish fresh water without moving the trailer.
Neither purchase was based on knowing exactly what full-time boondocking would eventually look like for us.
We bought them before we had all that experience.
We got lucky.
They worked.
And after using them over and over again in real-world conditions, we’d make those purchases again.
Building a Boondocking Setup Around Your Needs
There’s no single perfect boondocking setup.
Some people need more water than we do. Others need less.
Some rarely use a generator because they have a large solar system. Others rely heavily on generators.
Some people stay in one location for weeks. Others move every few days.
The important thing is to think about the basic resources you’ll need when hookups aren’t available:
How will you produce electricity?
How will you store electricity?
How will you replenish fresh water?
How will you manage your waste tanks?
Once you’ve solved those basic problems, boondocking becomes much less intimidating.
For us, the generator and truck-mounted water system solved two of the biggest ones.
And when we combined them with the portable solar panel and lithium battery system we cover in Part 2 of our boondocking setup, we had a relatively simple system that allowed us to spend month after month camping without hookups.
That’s what made these two pieces of equipment some of our favorite—and most useful—RV purchases.
We’ll see you down the road…and Over the Hills!
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