Generator Help

If you don't have one, sure enough you'll probably need it. If you have one you won't have any concerns. For your needs a small 1000 watt should be fine.

As others have said - if you are going to stay in a commerical campground then you probably do not need one, however, if you plan to boondock then i would suggest you might need one. of course this depend on if you need or want A/C.
my wife needs her hair blow dryer and micro wave oven, then a generator a must to have. we have a Honda 2000 which does it all for us, we do not have A/C.
we hope to go up to Alaska again this year and we plan to boon dock as much as possible.

Is the question about needing a generator for an Alaska trip?

IMO, you're unlikely to need a generator for Alaska: 18 - 20+ hours of sunlight in the summer, no need for A/C, etc.

On the way to AK...maybe you'll need A/C, but there's that many more CG's with plug-ins. If it were me and I didn't already have a generator, I wouldn't buy one for the AK trip.

We are heading north...Alaska via Canada
I understand the commercial CG almost all have electric
If we boondock a couple days in a row we will probably need a recharge
Denali for 3 days will require a generator
To just do that if we can't find a campground a 1000 or 2000 is probably fine. No ac or micro but that is fine.

What do you want to run in the RV will determine the size you need. Need more info.

It really does depend on what you want to run and where you camp. Air conditioning is really not even a consideration for us here in the Northwest, we'd never use it. Microwave we only use when we have power. I have a 2000i Yamaha but honestly only use it to charge batteries for my trolling motor. Solar more than keeps up with what we use for the camper, that being LED lights, refrigerator fan, and occasional use of the furnace. You can buy a lot of solar for what a Honda or Yamaha generator will cost. Glad to have both, but I got the generator with Cabelas bucks, basically for free, otherwise I probably would not have one. I think it is a good idea to ditch the wired CO2 and smoke detectors and replace them with AAA powered ones. That is just a battery drain I don't need.

If, as has been pointed out, you want to use a micro-wave and or A/C, you need one of two tings. A generator powerful enough to do the job and yes, get a Red or Blue one, that way you can stay friends with your neighbors. Or, you go to a campground that has plug-ins. One or the other. Also, because you are on the east side of things...I am guessing the A/C will be important to you.

On the other side of the question, however, is solar. It would cost you pretty much the same to buy and get installed. It is silent. It won't break down and doesn't use fuel. You can use a large inverter to power up a coffee maker and so on. But, not A/C.

Gary Haupt

We camp alot off road in our camper and the generator is a must have item. I have beefed up my trailer to run all of the 120VAC items we want on using an INVERTER an the 12VDC items direct connected to the battery bank. This is all planned to run down my battery bank to its 50% charge state by 8AM the next morning when we are usually allowed to run our small 2KW generator.

I connect my 30AMP trailer to the generator using the RV30A-15A Adapter and run my generator for around three hours each day to get my battery bank back up to its 90% charge state so we can do this all over again for the next day/night run off the batteries. This of course does not include the high wattage air conditioner or microwave.

Using the generator to run an air conditioner is not worth the effort for us here. Most places we go to here on the East side of the US does not allow the use of the generator except during restricted times. Never allowed after 8PM at night.

I guess it all depends on what you want to be doing when doing your RV CAMPING. Being a RV TRAVELER is another story I guess...

Roy Ken

So .. just where are you going that makes you wonder? Most CGs in canada and AK have electricity for you!