how much water for 3 nights

No idea about your usage but I can share mine. I carry 15 gallons inside the RV +5 in the HWH, and another ~70 gallons in the truck bed aux tank.

A long weekend (4 days) I will use about 40 gallons, refilling the inside tank once and using some directly from the aux tank.

That's about 10g a day, and includes drinking the water for myself and my dog, cooking, cleaning and maybe two showers.

I make only minimal effort to conserve water, not that I'm wasteful with it, but not worrying about every ounce either.

Since you don't say, I will make a few assumptions:
You are going to a dry campsite, ie no hookups.
You will take "Navy showers". That is, you wet yourself, turn off the shower, soap up, turn the shower on and quickly rinse off, shower off.
You will not stand in the shower and enjoy the hot water.
You will flush the toilet only briefly, no filling the toilet each time you flush.

Half a tank should be plenty.

Just a side comment: you probably won't feel much difference in the ride between a full tank and a half full tank.

spoon059 wrote:

luberhill wrote:
Not sure to gage how much we will need or use

If YOU don't know, how are WE supposed to know?

It all depends on the user and the expected experience. For 3 nights you could take one "Navy shower" (turn on water, wet yourself, turn off water. Soap/shampoo. turn on water, rinse yourself, turn off water) and get by with 3 gallons per person. Or you could take a luxurious shower and waste all your fresh water with one person the first night.

Are you going to a campground? Did you see if they have water spigots? Most state campgrounds around us don't have water hookups, but have various spigots at the main entrance or scattered loosely around the park. We have never had to carry water with us.

Do they have bath houses? You could just shower there and avoid your campers plumbing completely.

My suggestion to my friends when they start camping is to go to a full hookup site first. Fill up your water tank and attempt to "dry camp" that first weekend and see how far you get. They usually either learn to get by with their tanks (fresh and waste) or they learn that they need full hook up sites.

Will be fall dry camping...good advise thx :)

I always fill it up at a known good source then drive on.
Think Flint Michigan.

luberhill wrote:
wont be drinking it but showers for 2 people, one shower a day, and toilet...my tank holds 60 gallons, if there is no water available should I drive 100 miles with it full ? Or half ??
Not sure to gage how much we will need or use

Not as much concerned about fuel mileage as ride quality ?? First timers

That is a difficult question to answer. Depends on how long you let the water run in shower. How many times you flush the toilet, wash your heads afterwards.
If it was me I would fill my tank before I left and go from there. We have made through a 3 day weekend on a ful tank with some left with 2 adults and 2 more adults and a teenager for 1 night.

I never really noticed a difference in ride quality with a full or empty water tank.

Just my experience, others may have another point of view.

3 days, for me and the wife it would require 60 gallons if we each take a "regular" shower each day, wash dishes, and flush toilet without trying to conserve water. In conserve mode we can get by comfortably with 30, but no hair washing for her and disposable dishes.

We have a 65 gallon fresh tank and can easily go a week or more using reasonable conservation methods such as quicker showers and using more disposable dinnerware instead of dish washing. We almost always head out with a full tank when possible. And we do drink it...

luberhill wrote:
Not sure to gage how much we will need or use

If YOU don't know, how are WE supposed to know?

It all depends on the user and the expected experience. For 3 nights you could take one "Navy shower" (turn on water, wet yourself, turn off water. Soap/shampoo. turn on water, rinse yourself, turn off water) and get by with 3 gallons per person. Or you could take a luxurious shower and waste all your fresh water with one person the first night.

Are you going to a campground? Did you see if they have water spigots? Most state campgrounds around us don't have water hookups, but have various spigots at the main entrance or scattered loosely around the park. We have never had to carry water with us.

Do they have bath houses? You could just shower there and avoid your campers plumbing completely.

My suggestion to my friends when they start camping is to go to a full hookup site first. Fill up your water tank and attempt to "dry camp" that first weekend and see how far you get. They usually either learn to get by with their tanks (fresh and waste) or they learn that they need full hook up sites.

The two of us use about 10 gallons per day being conservative. We always fill the water tank when we can and dump the waste tanks when we can. You never know when there might be an issue with water supply or water quality at your destination, we have had a number of issues over recent years.

I went out last weekend for 1 night by myself (to the dunes). I packed along a full 53g of fresh. It's easy to tell when the tank is full, but because of tank location it's hard to physically see the level.

I didn't have to be conservative at all and took a nice long shower for a change.