The Complete Book of Boondock RVing

by Bill Moeller

  However, if the lack of space is not a problem for you, this RV might be worth considering.

  Travel Trailers

  Towable trailers include the conventional trailer and the fifth-wheel trailer.

  The tow vehicle of a conventional trailer must be equipped with a weight-distributing hitch, an antisway control, and safety chains. The heaviest of the hitches can handle up to 14,000 pounds of trailer weight.

  Advantages of conventional trailers are:

  They can sleep up to eight people, depending on model and floorplan.

  Their affordability and ease of use make them a good choice for a first RV.

  Disadvantages of conventional trailers are:

  They are hard to back into a campsite.

  The hitching process is quite complicated.

  The interior space can be quite compact, and most often the beds are convertible models.

  You have to be careful of the swaying issue, and they can be hard to maneuver in traffic.

  Fifth-wheel trailers are the choice of most fulltimers, and are probably the most popular RVs for boondocking. It has an elevated front, called a gooseneck, which projects over the bed of the pickup-truck tow vehicle, adding living space. Under the gooseneck is the kingpin, which is considered the "fifth wheel"; it fits into a hitch in the bed of the pickup truck. These hitches are quite heavy and can weigh 700 pounds or more. They are available in various sizes up to a capacity of 24,000 pounds.

  Advantages of fifth-wheel trailers are:

  They are easy to back into a campsite.

  They have a good amount of interior room.

  They do not have a swaying problem on the road, and are quite maneuver-able in traffic.

  Disadvantages of fifth-wheel trailers are:

  The wheels of the trailer cut a tighter circle than the truck wheels when turning, which can cause the trailer wheels to jump over curbs if you cut the corners too closely.

  These versatile trailers come in many sizes, and they have a surprising amount of storage space. We took a 21-foot (no slide) Nash to Alaska, and it was very comfortable for the two of us during our four-month journey.

  However, Jan didn’t think that she could live in a 21-foot trailer fulltime, so we now have a 34-footer with two slideouts. We are finding more and more people living in huge RVs, such as one couple we know who live in a 42-footer towed by a heavy-duty Peterbilt truck with a sleeper cab. Most of the newer, larger fifth-wheel units cannot be pulled by a standard 1-ton pickup truck anymore because of the extra weight. These large trailers are as large as a house, with all the bells and whistles. They have generators and solar panels to provide power for all their electrical needs and huge battery banks to store it. And the amazing thing is that many of these people boondock all the time.

  Motorhomes

  One of the best RVs for boondocking is a small, well-equipped Class A or Class C motorhome with a built-in generator. Some of the largest motorhomes are bus conversions; i.e., the chassis, frame, and engine of a bus form the basic structure. Class C models are built on a van chassis and have a cabover bunk.

  Our 21-foot Nash fifth-wheel trailer at a park in Canada.

  A fifth-wheel family enjoying the good life. (RVIA)

  Advantages of motorhomes are:

  They usually have good-sized water and waste tanks.

  They come with built-in generators, which allow you to use TVs, a microwave, computers, and heaters. A generator will also charge batteries and run an air conditioner (a luxury many RVers want occasionally). The built-in generator is where motorhomes shine over trailers.

  Disadvantages of motorhomes are:

  Most motorhome owners tow a car for local transportation and making short trips from the campsite. This means you have to maintain, license, and insure a second vehicle.

  If you don’t want to tow a car, then you need to break camp each time you must go somewhere.

  They are expensive compared to travel trailers.

  A Class A motorhome is a great way to see the country. (RVIA)

  A Class A motorhome is a good choice for family boondocking trips. (RVIA)

  A Class C motorhome also makes a good boondocking RV. (RVIA)

  A Class C motorhome can take you right where you want to go. (RVIA)

  A good friend of ours, Sharlene Minshall, has driven a small 27-foot Class A motorhome for seventeen years. She bought it new, and it has served her well, including three solo trips to Alaska and a lot of boondocking. Just recently, she bought another small motorhome to replace the older one.

  SELECTING YOUR RIG

  Now that you know the types of rigs available, let’s look at some other factors to consider in selecting a rig.

  Personal Factors

  Your rig has to fit your needs, wants, and your resources, all of which are personal and unique to you and your family. We can’t identify these for anyone; however, here are some questions to help you get started:

  What is your budget?

  Do you want to go used or new?

  What fuel do you prefer, diesel or gas?

  How many people will be regularly camping in the RV?

  Will you be RVing part-time or fulltime?

  If part-time, how much time will you spend RVing, and of that time, how much will be boondocking?

  Will you take your pets?

  Where will you park your RV when not on the road? Are there any town or city ordinances that you need to be aware of?

  A good way to begin your research for a new RV is to visit RV shows and dealerships. Walk through the models, try out the chairs and beds, sit on the toilet with the door closed, stand in the shower, and check the height of the kitchen counters and sink. Really poke around and get a feel for how the RV fits you. Do you have children? Bring them along and let them wander about while you stand in the kitchen. Is the rig too small? Does the layout work for your whole family? Is there enough seating for the whole family to sit down at one time?

  While you’re there, also pick up brochures and product literature. If there’s room, make notes on the literature about what you like, questions you have about a specific model, and what does and doesn’t work. Or bring a notepad for this information. After going through a few RVs, the details will probably start to blend together, and your notes will come in handy.

  Then we suggest you go home and study the information you’ve collected to begin narrowing down the specifications and features you need and want in your RV When you’ve got a good idea of what you are looking for, then revisit the show or dealership to get more specific information for the particular RV(s) you’re considering, as well as information on customization and financing.

  Size and Design

  While you may think you want as large an RV as you can afford, if you want to boondock, remember to pay attention to the length and width of the RV. As we related at the beginning of this chapter, before purchasing a new RV, we researched the campgrounds we wanted to visit and the RV dimensions they would accommodate. If you choose an RV that is too long or too wide, it will not be able to negotiate the roads in many public campgrounds, especially those in many national forests.

  Additionally, RVs with slideouts may not fit into many of the sites in these campgrounds with the slideout extended. We know that today it is heresy to criticize big RVs with large slideouts, but they do prevent your using a great many campsites. Today it is almost impossible to buy a new RV without a slideout, and most rigs now have multiple slides; two are standard, and three, four, and even five are becoming more common. The main disadvantages of slideouts are their extra weight, which impacts fuel consumption, and the space they require to extend. You must make allowances when parking so slideouts won’t hit a tree or other campground equipment when they are extended.

  In the end, selecting an RV for boondock camping is purely a personal decision. It really doesn’t matter if you have a Class A motorhome or a pickup camper as long as it’s what you want and are comfortable with. I don’t consi
der a tent camper a proper boondocking RV because they lack large water and holding tanks, but I have friends who have boondocked in one for many years. My nephew just recently purchased a combi-type hard-sided trailer with cloth slideout beds at each end. He and his wife plan to do a lot of primitive camping. Choose whatever you can afford, and whatever makes you happy.

  CHAPTER 4

  Water, Sewage,

  and Trash

  Successful boondocking requires that we manage resources—water, propane, and power—as well as waste. In this chapter, we’ll cover managing our water supply, sewage, and trash. We’ll cover propane in Chapter 5, and power in the electrical chapters.

  WATER

  Water is probably the most important item in boondock camping. Without it you can’t wash, shave, cook, or clean. Plus you also need water to drink. The question is how much water will you need?

  (RVIA)

  Table 4-1. How Long Will the Water Supply Last?

  At home, we use a great deal of water, probably without even thinking about it. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection reports on its website (www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/residents/wateruse.shtml) that the national average indoor residential water use per day per person is 60 to 70 gallons of water. Depending upon your rig, your freshwater tank could range in size from 40 to 90 gallons. And if there are two people using that water supply, you can easily see how we boondockers must look at water use in a different way. Conservation, at least when boondocking, has to be a way of life.

  So how much water do we use when boondocking? For the two of us, when we are actively conserving (including a few skimpy showers), we use about 6 gallons per day per person. Our 60-gallon water tank can last us five days or more. Based upon this, we’ve put together Table 4-1 to give you a quick estimate of how long a freshwater supply might last for different numbers of RVers. And we say "might" because matters of use and conservation will vary greatly from person to person.

  Conserving Water

  Throughout our years of fulltiming and boondocking, we’ve experimented with different ways of reducing our water usage. Here are a few ideas:

  Never turn on a faucet and just let the water run. If you’re waiting for the water to get hot, capture the cold water to use elsewhere.

  When washing your hands, wet them, shut off the water, soap up, and then rinse.

  Instead of using water to wash hands, use a waterless hand sanitizing product or baby wipes for messier jobs. The latter is a trade-off because you’ll be adding to the trash, but with children, the trade-off may be worth it.

  Install a showerhead shutoff valve if you have a showerhead that cannot be completely turned off. We installed a Water Whiz ball valve with female ½-inch pipe threads on each end, although any shutoff valve will work with the proper fittings. We got ours at Home Depot. This valve is made of white PVC and has a large, easy-to-grip handle for turning the spray on and off. It also matches the color of most white hoses and showerheads. To install:

  1. You will also need a close nipple with a ½-inch pipe thread to assemble the unit.

  2. Put some pipe dope on the threads of the close nipple and screw it in one end of the valve.

  3. Attach the unit between the showerhead and the hose.

  Having a good way to turn off the water flow at the showerhead allows you to get wet, turn off the water, lather up, turn on the water, and rinse without altering the hot/cold water setting. We measured the amount of water once, and we can each shower in 1 gallon of water. It’s hard to do, but it can be done.

  To get the shower water to the right temperature without a lot of adjusting, mark each knob in increments with varying lengths of colored tape. This will give you a guide as to where the knob should be set.

  Take sponge baths. During a recent hospital stay for surgery, Bill discovered a great product called No-Rinse Body Bath (www.norinse.com). It was developed for NASA astronauts. Squirt 1 ounce into a small container of water and wash with a washcloth. It doesn’t lather, so you don’t have to rinse it off, although you can rinse if you want. It leaves the skin clean and odor free. Jan has even washed her hair with it and liked the smell of it. You can also purchase No-Rinse Shampoo and No-Rinse Wipes. The website lists retailers who carry these products; even more convenient and perhaps cheaper, go to your Wal-Mart pharmacy, and if they don’t stock it, they will special-order them for you. Check your local pharmacies as well.

  Install single-lever faucets in the bathroom and galley sinks. These can adjust the faucet to the proper temperature without wasting a lot of water.

  Before washing the dishes, wipe them as clean as you can with paper towels.

  Don’t fill the sink with water to wash the dishes. Use the largest pan or bowl that you have previously used in preparing the meal as a dishpan. Use another container for the rinse water and dip the dishes in it instead of pouring water over them.

  Use paper plates and bowls, and dispose of them by burning them in a fire pit, if the campsite has one.

  Prepare foods that use as little water as possible for cooking and avoid those that use a lot, such as pasta. (You can cook pasta and similar foods before you go boondocking.)

  Steam or microwave foods when you can, especially vegetables.

  Replenishing Your Water Supply

  If your freshwater capacity isn’t large enough to last through a period of boondocking even with conservation, you have several options for replenishing your freshwater supply.

  Carry Extra Water with You

  The first option is to carry extra water in jugs. We carry two 6-gallon jerry jugs with water just for this purpose. If you intend to transfer the water in the jugs into the tank on your RV, keep in mind that large-sized jugs are heavy and may be difficult to handle when full. Also, using a funnel will usually make the job go quicker—and with less spillage—than pouring directly from a jug.

  Campground Water Source

  Some boondock campgrounds have communal faucets providing potable water. If your campsite is close enough, you might be able to reach the faucet with your hose. Otherwise, you’ll have to take either your RV or jugs to the faucet. (To be courteous, don’t leave your hose connected to such a faucet for any longer than it takes to fill your tank.)

  Often these faucets will not have threads on the end of the spout so that a hose cannot be connected in the normal manner (this is done deliberately to discourage greedy water users from hooking up to the faucet). A water thief will help for these situations. This device has a rubber sleeve on one end to slip over the smooth faucet spout and a hose fitting at the other end to attach your hose to.

  Portable Water Tanks

  If you wish to dry camp for long periods of time in a certain area, you can use a portable bladder water tank to transport water from a nearby town or water source to your RV. These tanks are made of flexible PVC and are available in sizes from 13 to 35 gallons. Bladder tanks were designed for use in boats during long ocean passages, and they are ideal for boondocking.

  You can transfer the water from the bladder tank to your RV tank with a 12-volt water pump (the kind used for pressurizing your RV’s water system). Connect it to the ½-inch outlet fitting on the bladder tank. Or you can use a gravity feed or siphon.

  While at Quartzsite one year, we saw a flexible tank lashed on the roof of a pickup truck’s cab, which probably gave the tank a high enough position for a gravity feed to work. You could also mount such a tank in the bed of a pickup truck or on the roof of a car or a sport utility vehicle, using a 12-volt water pump to transfer the water into your main tank.

  You can purchase bladder tanks from RV supply stores or boating supply houses such as West Marine. The extra 12-volt DC water pump used with the tank can also serve as a spare in case the main pump in the RV’s water system breaks down.

  You can use flexible water tanks to transport water to the RV. (Navimo and West Marine)

  Table 4-2. Standard Holding Tank Sizes

  Hard-sided polyethylene
water tanks are also an option that you could mount in a truck bed or a car’s trunk for the same purpose.

  HOLDING TANKS

  As we mentioned earlier, your RV must be self-contained for boondocking, meaning you must have not only a freshwater tank, but also holding tanks for the liquid and solid wastes. The ideal setup is to have a gray-water tank for the liquids coming from the sink and shower and a black-water tank for the toilet waste. The gray-water tank should be the larger of the two, as it will fill faster. It is never a good idea to have only one holding tank as it will fill up quickly and need to be emptied more often.

  Table 4-2 provides some standard holding tank sizes for fifth-wheel trailers and motorhomes. Specific sizes will vary from model to model and among manufacturers, so use these only as general guidelines.

  By reducing your water consumption, you not only extend your freshwater supply, you also minimize the amount of water that goes into your gray-water holding tank. You can further reduce filling up the gray-water tank by using some gray water to flush the toilet.