Dry camping across Canada & Alaska
Is it possible, with adequate solar power capability, to camp across Canada on the AlCan hwy without paying campground fees? We would probably be going July through September, so I think there would b...
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You'll not have any problems. The Milepost will show every turnout, and whether they are double ended for easy entry and exit. Some of these are posted but most of them are not. Even on the posted ones, which we try to not use, we regularly see overnighters that are not hassled. In the few instances we've stayed in posted areas we've never been disturbed either. We do make it a practice to stay in truck stops when south of Edmonton, because the traffic south of there is quite heavy and turnouts are fewer.
Wal Mart stops at Grand Prairie and Whitehorse are very popular. In 6 trips to Alaska with 40 and 43' rigs pulling toads we've never paid for a campground until we got to Tok.
As far as power is concerned, the spring days are very long and we do fine with four flat mounted 140w panels on an MPPT controler. When you start down in Aug/Sept, days will be shorter but we ran a household refrigerator, a 16 cu ft chest freezer, and a 3.5 cu ft basement freezer without ever having to use the generator to charge batteries. We have 6 AGM house batteries, but the coach is set up for boondocking with gas range and oven, gas hot water and heat, and a dedicated inverter for the fridge and freezers and LED lighting.
We have found that provincial parks in Canada are a waste of money for overnight stops. They are all dry camping, furnish nothing except possibly a dump or water (when not polluted and posted) and only serve to collect you $20 a night. Free dump and water sites are available in the towns and cities all along the Alaska highway.
Wal Mart stops at Grand Prairie and Whitehorse are very popular. In 6 trips to Alaska with 40 and 43' rigs pulling toads we've never paid for a campground until we got to Tok.
As far as power is concerned, the spring days are very long and we do fine with four flat mounted 140w panels on an MPPT controler. When you start down in Aug/Sept, days will be shorter but we ran a household refrigerator, a 16 cu ft chest freezer, and a 3.5 cu ft basement freezer without ever having to use the generator to charge batteries. We have 6 AGM house batteries, but the coach is set up for boondocking with gas range and oven, gas hot water and heat, and a dedicated inverter for the fridge and freezers and LED lighting.
We have found that provincial parks in Canada are a waste of money for overnight stops. They are all dry camping, furnish nothing except possibly a dump or water (when not polluted and posted) and only serve to collect you $20 a night. Free dump and water sites are available in the towns and cities all along the Alaska highway.
