Recent Poll Results

Regarding the poll on the home page, I thought it unusual that there would be almost 10% who have never camped without any hook-ups. I understand that it is mainly motor homes that are fully self-contained with aux power sources that make that a livable arrangement. But propane provides for cooking, heating water, running the fridge, and if needed the heat unit. Battery power runs the lights.

The only ones who would typically not use hook-ups are tent campers. So I was curious as to why someone would not have boon docked, at least once or twice?

You would think that owning a "self-contained" RV would entice people to try the freedom of the outdoors. But we have met many people who would NEVER dream of being without electricity for their DVR, TV, Satellite, Computer, and Microwave. We've even met RV'ers who have NEVER started their generator! We recently met a couple who fulltime and didn't boondock for their first year on the road. They were worried they didn't have enough water for 1 shower in their 100 gallon storage tank. But they've gotten past their fears and are boondocking with us now.

We PREFER not to boondock. We have on occasion, mainly at a Wal-Mart for the night while going from here to there. After ten years of RVing in motorhomes we finally did some boondocking this past year. We spent eight days at the FMCA SE Area Rally in Brooksville, FL, and then spent five days at the Naval Base in Key West. Still not crazy about it. The biggest problem is the smell of burning diesel from everyone running their generators. At the rally generators had to be turned off between 2300 and 0700. Everybody had their auto-gen start set for 0700. When we first stepped out of the coach all you could smell was diesel fuel. My attitude: If God wanted me to dry camp He would not have had them put that 50 amp cord that hangs out the back of my coach!

We'll be dry camping again but it will only be out of neccesity. When we arrive at our destination I want, at minimum, an electric outlet. Oh, by the way, we did dry camp for six days two weeks before Christmas. It was in our driveway when we lost power due to the ice storms here in Oklahoma City area. Ran the generator straight for 140 hours. This was way more hours than we put on the generator in our last coach and we owned it for five years.

..........We've even met RV'ers who have NEVER started their generator! ..........

Here is a piece of advice that I got when I got my generator repaired. "As long as you are sure that your generator is not leaking fumes into the RV do not use the dash AC, always use the roof AC on the Gen set". Here in the Northeast where it is all hills you actually use less gas, and have more power to put to the road by using the roof AC. In most cases the Gen set uses less than 1 gallon of fuel per hour, and should be run for 30 minutes under 3/4 load at least 4 times a year. The generator guy claims that doing this will make me come in more often for service if I can't do it myself (I can), but I will probably only see him once in 10 years for major repairs.
I tested this out on a trip this Summer, and I have to admit it was cooler in the RV, I had power to climb hills, and at 12.5 MPG VS 11.3 on dash AC it cost less too. I'm willing to bet that this is probably good for the engine as well.

Never Boondocking? I can't see that, I want to see the places and do the things that you can't see unless you Boondock.

I personally find it hard to understand any one with an RV has never boondocked -- even accidentally -- seems like at least a few times you'd get stuck without a camp-spot.

And that means never using many national parks or state parks because most of them do not have site-services. I'm sure it happens, and these folks are not making it up -- it just seems very odd to me that one would have an RV and never enjoy the out-of-site lands that we have in USA and Canada, Mexico, etc.

My inverter is the primary power source for boon docking. Altho not at the same time, it will run everything in my coach except the basement air unit. We use it way more than the generator.

We also have some friends who have never boon docked. But then they prefer the concrete subdivision campgrounds, so enuff said.

Bblhed> We?re not impressed with our dash air during hot weather, so I?m going to give your idea a try. If we?re still hot with the dash air on and burning more fuel anyway, I might as well burn it from the generator.