New to dry camping

[campgrl]

We have our first dry camping trip planned for Memorial weekend. Arriving at campsite early evening Friday and leaving early afternoon Monday. We just bought a new Jayco 23B with 48 gals freshwater and 22.5 grey and black tanks. Our rig has LED lights and 6.3 cu ft fridge. It will be my husband, 11 yr old daughter and I camping. We plan to cook some meals on stove and some over the fire. With our fridge and water heater on propane (dual 20lb tanks) and water pump and lights on battery, will be ok without needing a genny to recharge the battery? We don't plan on showers and we will be using paper products to conserve on water. If we do run out of water there is hand pump directly across from our campsite we can fill our 5 gal containers and fill up again. We also have a tote to dump our grey water in if necessary. The only downfall is there are no dump stations in the campground so I'm not sure on how to transport that heavy tank to dump it. We have always had shore power so this will be a new, exciting, and long awaited way of camping for us. If it gets cold we won't be running the furnace either. Just bundling up! Thanks for any input.

[toedtoes]

pnichols wrote:

toedtoes wrote:
I disagree on the "more work". I find dry camping to be extremely easy to setup - turn on propane, light fridge, light water heater, turn on water pump. Done.

RV Park setup - turn on propane, light water heater, turn on water pump, pull out power cord, plug in power cord. That's one more task.

I always use my own fresh water, and don't deal with sewer hoses until I'm going to dump, so that's the same either way.

We drycamp with even less work: The propane is always ON. The refrigerator is turned ON from the beginning of the trip (lit via auto sparker at home - no matches - before starting the trip) and stays ON for the whole trip. The water heater is lit via auto sparker - no matches.

We do turn ON the water pump at each camping spot.

Ooooops I almost forgot .... drycamping usually requires leveling of the motorhome at each camping spot, drycamping requires pushing of a button to start the built-in generator in order to use the microwave or air conditioner, and if camping for more than about 3 days drycamping may require getting out the portable generator and hooking it up to recharge the coach batteries if for some reason we don't want to recharge using the built-in generator or idling of the main engine. 😉

Even at the RV parks I've been to, I've had to level - so that's a wash. No generator, so no work there. Who knew dry camping could be so easy! :B

[pnichols]

toedtoes wrote:
I disagree on the "more work". I find dry camping to be extremely easy to setup - turn on propane, light fridge, light water heater, turn on water pump. Done.

RV Park setup - turn on propane, light water heater, turn on water pump, pull out power cord, plug in power cord. That's one more task.

I always use my own fresh water, and don't deal with sewer hoses until I'm going to dump, so that's the same either way.

We drycamp with even less work: The propane is always ON. The refrigerator is turned ON from the beginning of the trip (lit via auto sparker at home - no matches - before starting the trip) and stays ON for the whole trip. The water heater is lit via auto sparker - no matches.

We do turn ON the water pump at each camping spot.

Ooooops I almost forgot .... drycamping usually requires leveling of the motorhome at each camping spot, drycamping requires pushing of a button to start the built-in generator in order to use the microwave or air conditioner, and if camping for more than about 3 days drycamping may require getting out the portable generator and hooking it up to recharge the coach batteries if for some reason we don't want to recharge using the built-in generator or idling of the main engine. 😉

[toedtoes]

profdant139 wrote:
Most critically, have fun! Boondocking and dry camping are very different from staying in an RV park. More work, more adventure, more enjoyable.

I disagree on the "more work". I find dry camping to be extremely easy to setup - turn on propane, light fridge, light water heater, turn on water pump. Done.

RV Park setup - turn on propane, light water heater, turn on water pump, pull out power cord, plug in power cord. That's one more task.

I always use my own fresh water, and don't deal with sewer hoses until I'm going to dump, so that's the same either way.

[profdant139]

I respectfully disagree with some of the above comments. You do not need a generator yet, and you should not need to disconnect the battery at night, for such a short trip. This is a new trailer with a new battery, so it should be in good shape. Do charge it before you leave, though.

And speaking of charging, it is a very good idea to have a "battery minder" that trickle charges the battery when you are not camping. If you let the battery run down to nothing and then re-charge it before going camping, you can really shorten the life of the battery. Another lesson painfully learned.

Most critically, have fun! Boondocking and dry camping are very different from staying in an RV park. More work, more adventure, more enjoyable.

[2gypsies1]

Do you have a generator or can you borrow one - just in case?

[Traveler7]

I've read you can reuse gray water to flush the toilet 🙂

[nevadanick]

Stay in it next weekend at home from friday til monday and find out if you can make it that long.

[fitznj]

Disconnect the battery when you go to bed. There are parasitic components which will run the battery down during the night. I can run for 3 days on my battery during the summer when the load on the battery is lowest. I have since bought a 150W solar panel which keeps the battery topped up and I can camp indefinately
Gerry

[eichacsj]

LED lights, you don't plan on using the heater, run our fridge and water heater on propane, you will have plenty of battery. You can go for a lot longer then 3 days.

[toedtoes]

I have a 50lb propane tank. It took 24 nights of camping to go through it. During all that time, I had the water heater and fridge running the entire time, I used the stove regularly for meals. You will be surprised how little propane you actually use.

I have a 40 gallon fresh water tank. Not taking showers, but not being excessively conservative, I go through less than a 1/2 tank over a 4 day trip. You will probably want to use the campground facilities during the day as much as possible.

I have 28 gallon grey and black tanks. If I use a 1/2 tank of water, the 2 tanks are about 1/4 full (that's using the bathroom sink for teeth and washing hands - it goes into the black tank). If you don't use all your fresh water, you'll be fine with your dirty tanks.

Battery is your weakest link. For me, before I got the AGM battery, I used AA puck lights for stuff like reading, and the RV lighting (fluorescent) only for cooking, etc. I did leave the water pump on all the time. Could go 4 days max. With the AGM (group 31) battery, I can use the overheads a bit more (still use puck lights for nighttime reading), charge my cell phone, kindle and laptop as needed, and I still have almost a full charge.

For your first trip, be really conservative on the first day. Then look at your levels. If you're less than 1/5 down, then you're doing good. If you're more than 1/4, then you need to conserve more or find a way to increase.

[handye9]

If you haven't already done so, changing your light bulbs to LED's, will save you a considerable amount of battery power.

[amandasgramma]

As for water and the holding tanks. We, the two of us, can go almost 2 weeks on tanks that were just a little larger. You should be fine. Teach the child to NOT run water for hours on end.......to brush teeth or flush the toilet, for example. use campground bathrooms if possible.

Spend your time outside, your batteries will be fine if you make sure they're topped off and good before leaving. 🙂 Seriously....spend your time outside...it's the best!!!!

[korbe]

When the 2 of us are in conserve mode, we use about 18ah per day. We went out and camped until the systems became either full, empty, or drained, and then we had it figured out the answer to that question of "how long".

[Sourdough_Biscu]

We have only slightly larger black and gray tanks and two of us can go 7-10 days.

Fresh water and propane should not be an issue at all.

Depending on size of batteries, and your personal power useage, three days is doable. (We can go three days on 2 12v batteries.) Your led lights will help a lot with that. If we run the generator during times like that, its usually shortly after we get up while we're running the furnace to take the edge off and running the pump for brushing teeth, morning bathroom chores and maybe cooking breakfast. In other words, a half hour of generator during the time you're using the most power will also go a long way toward conserving batteries.

PS In this same section, it might be interesting for you to read the thread on "how long can you dry camp?". 🙂

But, your mileage WILL vary. Everyone's personal habits and useage will vary. But this will be a good " test" for you. Enjoy!!

[Tom_N]

If your battery becomes low just plug into your tow vehicle and run the engine. Your engine will charge your RV battery.

Or use a set of jumper cables from the tow vehicle battery to the RV battery with the engine running.