Down in the Boondocks

It didn't take long, only a day or two, to know - I just wouldn't be cut out for this. No, I don't mean that I would never trade my house for a 300 square foot RV. I mean that I would not be a boondocking enthusiast.

Boondocking is the term used in the RV world to describe camping without any hookups - no sewer connection, no fresh water connection, and no electrical connection.

Nearly all RVs have provisions to allow for some level of boondocking. There is a holding tank to store fresh water, batteries and propane cylinders to store energy, and holding tanks for buffering grey water and black water until you can dispose of it properly. Many units have generators and some even have solar panels for generating additional energy. But that doesn't make it easy. It takes a lot of conservation; a lot of discipline; to be successful.

For some, the motivation seems to be just the challenge itself; it's a game for them to see how long they can last. For others, there is a financial motivation. While the fees for camping in most national and state parks are very reasonable, I'm told there is a lot of Federal land where you can boondock for free. As well, I have read that most Walmart stores will allow you to boondock in their parking lot overnight for free. Apparently, a lot of people take advantage of this when travel between campgrounds requires an overnight stay.

So, how do you pull it off? You have to conserve wherever you can. You run the water as little as possible when you brush your teeth. When you are running water and just waiting for it to get hot, you capture the water instead of just letting it go down the drain. You use that water later to maybe rinse soap off the dishes or rinse shampoo out of your hair. If you have captured some grey water and you are confident that it is safe to do so, you pour the water out on the ground away from the campsite instead of putting it into the holding tank.

For electricity, you will need to run the lights as little as possible. Forget the TV, the microwave, and for sure, the air conditioner. Even if you have a generator, you'll have to be conservative since it is pulling fuel from the same gas tank that is going to get you back home or to your next campground. And those solar panels won't be helpful if trees are blocking their view of the sun.

It can help to plan your travel with boondocking in mind. Spend the summer months far enough north to get along without air conditioning. Alternatively, you might spend the summer at a high altitude. We spent a few days in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. At 3600 feet above sea level, the temperatures were ten degrees or so cooler than the places not in the mountains where we camped. Similarly, spend the winter somewhere south so that you don't need much in the way of heating.

I've read blogs where people say they are able to boondock for as long as two weeks. Good for them, but I just don't see how I could do it.

There are in betweens; partial hookups. As I write this, we are at the Piney Campground at Land Between the Lakes. The campground is quite large, nearly 400 sites total, but only about fifty have full hookups. I am thankful that we have one of them. At various campgrounds, you will find sites with fresh water and electricity, but no sewer. You will also find sites with electricity only. Of course, you get what you pay for. The fewer the hookups, the cheaper the camping fee. In anything other than moderate weather, I don't see how you get along without at least electricity to run the heater or air conditioner. For short stays, you may be able to get by without water and sewer hookups, saving a few bucks. By the way, a campground that has any sort of hookups, will have a dump station. If you've camped without a sewer hookup, you can empty your tanks at the dump station as you leave the campground.

But even short stays require conservation. Our previous stay was at an Army Corps of Engineers campground on Old Hickory Lake outside of Nashville. All sites had electricity and water, but no sewer. There were public restrooms and showers that we used for everything except one middle-of-the-night bathroom break. We tried as best we could to limit what went into the holding tanks with brushing teeth, cooking, and washing dishes. If we did not finish a glass of tea or cup of coffee, we captured the leftovers in a jug rather than pouring it down the drain. But in spite of our efforts, we still found ourselves disconnecting the RV on the third day and driving it over to the dump station.

Of course, the bigger the RV, the bigger the holding tanks. Our rental is probably in the middle in that regard.

You can purchase a portable holding tank in sizes ranging from maybe fifteen to fifty gallons. Some people use these to empty their holding tanks rather than disconnecting and moving the entire RV. They typically are roughly the size and shape of a child's wagon with four wheels and a handle. After you transfer the contents of your RV's holding tanks into the portable tank, you can actually pull the "wagon" behind your car to the dump station. Just keep it under five miles per hour and watch out for those speed bumps. But this is quite doable in a typical RV campground.

I suppose with time and experience, I'll get better at it. A larger RV will help. But, me going two weeks? I just don't see it.........Hardware