Boondocking Tips

Super!

On our trailer:

4 Interstate wet cell 6 volt golf cart batteries
3 120 watt Mitusbishi solar panels, 1 130 watt Kyocera solar panel, wired in series
1 Outback FlexMax FM60 charge controller
1 Exceltech XP 1100 pure sine wave inverter

Average daily demand: 100-125 ah

We have boondocked in the western and southern states

On our sailboat:

4 MasterVolt 4D AGM batteries (house)
1 MasterVolt Group 27 AGM battery (start)
3 Kyocera 185 watt 24 volt solar panels wired in parallel
1 Xantrex 150 Charge Controller
1 600 watt pure sine wave inverter
1 Xantrex 2500 watt inverter/charger

Average daily demand: 180-230 ah

We sailed the entire western coast of Mexico from San Diego to the Guatemala border including the Sea of Cortez

Emily, the link below is an example in how I share information to help others in furthering their ability to stay out longer/boondocking. Not everyone is fulltiming. But also directing readers to a site that does generate clicks and income for the party/host that is providing the venue.


Water Availability Clicky


Safe Travels.

b

Hi Emily! Thanks for writing back. Yep, any way someone can make their adventure work and even continue, I am there to help and watch. My recommendation would to be more transparent about this fact. While you will have those that won’t appreciate it, but I suspect many more will wish to help. Especially tangentially by clicks. Share this too, by clicking other people’s pages too.

Sort of like on Facebook, a lady is on a Motorcycle tour and likes to post a lot, and lots of selfies. She gets a lot of likes. Supported by Revzilla (motorcycle sales) and I always give her the referral when I order from them, so she gets the credit. (Sponsorship/free stuff) I am getting the stuff anyway, so why not help out another person. But, she never likes or comments on other pages. Things should be beneficial. IMHO. With you, understand others are not in competition but a compliment to you. As well as we don’t possess the final word on topics. Because of the varied use and needs, most outcomes are different.

Nothing is wrong with your hosing site. It is on my end. It is the level of signal, as well as the time of day and bandwidth being used. The trouble becomes the number of attempts, as it uses more bandwidth each attempt. Sure I could just move to the city and solve everything. Just like the challenges in getting things shipped to you. It is no one else’s problem, I chose this lifestyle. I don’t expect others to adapt to my needs, by being the victim. But find ways to make things work, like a trick I use to get Amazon & FedEx shipments. Or companies that will work with you, in the unusual needs of shipping a package to you. This is how I had everyone one of my solar panels shipped and I delivered each one to camp, on the back of my motorcycle. With each Fulltimer, things will be different. With the majority of Fulltimers, they just have things shipped to their RV Park. With me, it is different in that it is sometimes 40 to 70 miles, one way, to the nearest town and post office. Thus, an extreme boondocker.

My writing style is challenging, and I know it too. It works wonderfully when I am writing a story, but a hindrance when I am wishing to share something technical. Letter writing is a disappearing art and being replaced with “ur” instead of you are. Thus the reader too, is becoming impatient too.

I am often judged by my rig and shock when people find me where I am. I liken this to a “Hill climb” on a motorcycle/snowmobile. The lighter, faster and better equipped will make it higher up the hill. Same thing with RVs. Maybe why I have never ever seen a 5th Wheel RV where I boondock, nor will you find me boondocking where the tricked out Jeeps go. But here is the difference, with the “Hill Climb.” I just share; “you can only go as far as what you brung.” Sort of like the old racing cliché; “Race what you brung.” This results in that I can stay longer and go higher and farther than the tricked out Jeep and motorcycle. Those guys will ride/drive fewer miles, starve and freeze and see less than me. When they learn that, my rig takes on an entirely different look. The trick is to build consensus, not conflict and opposition. There will always be those you will be unable to reach. So be it. Also, embrace others, not as a threat but as someone to share ideas and comparisons with.

As for my five questions, a simple answer of;

What type of batteries?
“I use a mix of batteries in 2 different banks. They are AGM and FWC (Flooded Wet Cell Batteries)

Quantities?
Two banks, two 6v AGM and ten 6v FWC.

Solar and watts?
I have two systems of Poly panels, in parallel, for a total of 1,860 watts.

Your average daily AmpH demand?
150-200 average AmpH documented for over 4 years.

Where do you boondock (regions) for the different seasons?
I love to avoid the heat of summer (as I don’t run A/C) and cold of winter (it is a lot of work, to stay warm off the grid) by heading to the mountains of the north and the deserts of the southwest, the Chihuahuan and Mojave Deserts.

My answers are framed in such a way, it begs more questions. And then, (if I had a web site) I certainly have a story and information in how I do all this and got here, in more detail, on my website. You haven’t divulged anything, but provided a tease of what you have to share. Building consensus.

Have fun and I hope your exit plan is a long ways off, as mine is too.

b

Thanks again for clarifying, Bryan.

I live with scant internet too, as I am off the grid 100% of the time and in remote places most of the time.

We have lived without a cell phone since 2007 and we did not get a Verizon Mifi Jetpack until 2012, so we had no internet access from our trailer for the first 5 years of our travels.

On our boat, I waited 21 minutes for a 68k (kilobyte) file with the (very important) weather report to download as we sailed past a town. I had to hold the laptop over my head to keep the connection going!

So I fully understand your concern about lack of good internet signals and how long it takes for pages to download!!

I am sorry that my site is slow to load. If I could afford a faster host, my site would load much faster. You see, if my ads paid more, I would pay for a faster host!

I am glad you are not averse to advertising on websites, as this one, coming to us courtesy of Good Sam Club, has lots of advertising on it too.

Hi Emily. You certainly misunderstand things. Again, I am all in favour of people finding ways of earning a living, or defray costs in what they are doing by using different funding sources. In fact the moderator of this forum, does exactly what you are doing, as does the other couple I mentioned earlier, Truck Camping Magazine. It is just being transparent about it. If you wish to have people come to your site for clicks and not share information here, as I have stated, there is nothing wrong with that.

But Dan saw exactly the issue boondockers like myself, ones that stay away from populated areas, have. My iPhone has a terrific app that can show where internet service is and I often try to route through those areas. Thus avoiding populated areas with good service. The issue is when pages are heavy with data, like large photos, or long streams of photos (58 photos in a single post). A boondocker's internet connection often times out, or either doesn't load the photos. The issue for many rural watchers is how Dan described, not having a high speed or Fiber Optic connection. In fact it took me 5 days to finally upload 28 photos and another article. So clicking and then getting to your page and then clicking again to the post is a challenge of patience, for remote boondockers. I could put heavier filters on, but I don't have an issue with your ADs or others I wish to support.

Emily, again, your page is great and I sent 2 people, last night, links to your blog and will continue to recommend it. As I too share and write about boondocking and fulltiming. I just don't have the patience and discipline needed to do a Blog/Web page to the quality of yours. I choose to provide content to others to publish and or post. I share often how important it is to prepare and have a revenue source for doing an adventure such as yours, before they start and sell everything. We are doing very different things and I for one look forward to learning more from you and Mark. I am all for helping those people, like Mello Mike, the White's and now, you and Mark, create some return in furthering your adventure. You are right, you two have put a lot of work into the postings, found on your blog. I was just hoping you might wish to share here too, on RV.net. But you've answered that.

You are correct in the satisfaction that is gained in helping others, especially in furthering ones dreams of fulltiming, as there is in the satisfaction of learning from others.


b

bryan and profdant139 - There are ads on my site in an effort to defray the cost of keeping it.

Since I started my site in 2008, I have averaged between 2 and 3 cents an hour for my effort.

However, it has helped hundreds of people learn about solar power, learn about boondocking, learn about sailing, learn about vent-free heaters and get ideas of places to go.

And it has inspired lots of people to start a life of full-time travel.

There is a personal satisfaction in helping people, and that's why the few cents and hour is worth it.

Very few bloggers make a living from blogging. I don't think any RV bloggers can say they make a true living wage from blogging. At best, it is pocket money.

I have friends who have travel and photography blogs that are among the highest ranked blogs in their areas of interest, and they are lucky to clear $3,000 a month -- for 100+ hours a week of work. None of the RV blogs get traffic that is even close to what those blogs get.

So, enjoy the free reading!! We are all so lucky that the internet is here with free info for us all!!

bka, I only see a few ads on Emily and Mark's site -- have you installed Adblock on your browser? I don't exactly know how it works, but it seems to filter out some of the extra junk that is tacked onto the frame around the site by third party website hosting software, while it generally leaves intact the ads that are authorized by the blogger.

I use Chrome, and Adblock is a very useful extension. You can fine-tune it so that it lets in more or fewer ads. There are sites where I don't block anything because the ads are useful to me -- rv.net, for example, carries ads by e-trailer, and I have found several good products by looking at those ads.

This is important for boondockers, since we aren't operating off of a landline or a fiber optic cable -- we need to make sure that the "signal to noise ratio" is as high as possible, so that scarce bandwidth is not wasted on junk.

So I guess this is another boondocking tip -- make sure your web setup is lean and mean!

Hi Emily.

Thanks for posting the link too. Yep, I am known and sometimes embarrassing proud of my lack of economy of words.

The work you have put into your web site, is impressive and very well done too. Also, there is a HUGE amount of adds, on your site, as well. Clicking on one you will see there is a click counter on it. Truck Camping Magazine does the same thing too, for full disclosure and transparency.

While answering my 5 questions, IMHO, would not take as much time. With that information the reader might have wanted to check out your blog to find out even more information, given your answers. I know I have and did. Thanks!

b

I appreciate your very long post, Bryan. And I appreciate that folks don't want to be directed to a blog outside this conversation.

Unfortunately, after putting several hundred hours into explaining our solar setup on our blog, it is hard to justify repeating myself here. I just posted our boondocking tips link 'cause I thought it would be helpful to other boondockers.

If you wish to see our solar pages, they are on our blog here:

Solar Power for RVs and Boats

Happy trails and have fun boondocking!!

-Emily

Hi Emily! (n’ Mark, so as not be left out) Thanks for writing back. You had me at Sailboat! Everyone in 5th Wheels Fulltime? Right? To be honest, the number of nights is unimportant, to most. For Fulltimers it just part of a day, like the sun coming up every day. What is most interesting to me, is the number of nights someone with a fulltime job, with a family or taking kids camping that have never been before, related or unrelated. That takes more effort and time.

What is great, for what you and Mark bring to the forum, is your “tested” knowledge of how a person can be successful with items, lessen one’s learning curve and especially, learn from your mistakes and skip those steps and stretch a 3 day weekend to 4 or 5 days. Your sharing of the "Blue Flame Heater" Clicky certainly had my attention. When looking it up, I found the heater is aptly named, as it has an exposed flame. For a small space RV like mine, this would not be something I would consider, but certainly something others might consider.

To help here would be to bring information to this forum, than directing one to a Blog. For many of us, outside populated areas, we rely on bandwidth that is regulated for a cost. Or just too lazy to click again on your mouse/touch a screen (IOS). So it is helpful just having photos and information here.

Many have started using Blogs to generate income from Advertisers. These are counted as “clicks/eyes” to their sites. In my world of Adventure Riding, there are many that are using this means for financing their World Trips. Moderators, with Blogs, do this. My friend, David, writes for different RV Magazines on Boondocking. He always shares that the money he makes pays for his gas and expenses. All very noble if you can do it. So directing people to a web site often provides a benefit, to the reader and author. But if you could share here, too, that would be great! Here, you will get more feedback and questions.

Like, could you share a little bit about your solar, you have mentioned? What type of batteries? Quantities? Solar and watts? Your average daily AmpH demand? Where do you boondock (regions) for the different seasons?

Safe travels.

b