10 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO BOONDOCKING

foreign [Music] things to know before you go boondocking for the first time welcome to Roman your home my name is Randy and this is Jamie we're going to tell you all the things we learned in our first week of boondocking so that you don't make the same mistakes for those of you who aren't familiar with boondocking it's rving without any hookups this takes a lot of research or work to get your RV ready and you'll need to find out where you are allowed to moon dog for us we were excited to stay for free on Bureau of Land Management land otherwise known as public lands we'll tell you at the end of this video how you can find out where that is [Music] it's our first time on BLM yes [Music] show you where we're gonna be here is our view not too bad huh okay perfect this is our view I'm so excited [Music] to start things off number one is check your weather as you can see we're in some weather right now we have a storm coming our way but nothing for us to worry about we just want to make sure that you guys have a weather radio or just just to be safe make sure you're not out here in crazy weather so as you can see we are in the middle of nowhere with a storm coming we knew it was just a typical thunderstorm so we weren't concerned because you're off the grid and most likely you won't have too many people to warn you like you would have in an RV park it's really important to have a weather radio even without any power you'll still be able to get emergency weather warnings with your weather radio it's also important to have a plan to escape to a safe place if needed I have my sunglasses on not because it's sunny but to keep the sand out of my contacts it is really blowing this it is getting pretty windy to take this inside yeah number two know the watch you use this means know what equipment you need to run and how many watts are used to run them things like your refrigerator coffee maker TV lights laptop hair dryer you get the point so many things we use daily without even thinking about how much power they use when you're running your power with solar and Battery using your inverter or using your generator it's critical to know what all you can safely run you might be surprised that you won't be able to run certain things like your microwave your TV and your AC depending on what size inverter battery solar and Generator that you have here's some of the things we did to get ready to Boondock we added a soft start to our AC this lowers the starting watts to allow you to run your AC with a generator you need to look into what size your AC is and what size generator you will need for your RV to ensure this will work for you we switched out our lead acid battery with a 200 amp hour lithium ion phosphate battery we already have 190 watts of solar on our roof and we have a 160 watt solar suitcase that plugs into the side of RV our fridge is 12 volt that runs off our battery which is charged by our solar we bought a 750 watt ecoflow solar generator which we'll discuss more later we have water bags to fill up our freshwater tank so we didn't have to travel with the full tank we decided on a 2500 watt dual fuel Champion portable inverter generator number three test your setup we cannot stress this enough test everything in a safe environment where you don't need anything and you're right next to four hookups take a few days and practice in an RV park or at home and see if things run as planned make sure your battery or generator is big enough to run the things that you want it to like your AC or your fridge test to see how much fresh water you use each day how quickly you fill the black tank and the gray tank test and practice before you try it for real we did not and we totally regret it we did a ton of research and ask our viewers with our similar setup what they used we planned and did everything we thought was right but never took the time to actually test it and make sure it worked we got to a spot in Texas what the triple digit heat outside and inside the RV and we got all set up only to learn that the generator did not work for us we would have to get a bigger generator or link two together to run our AC despite what so many people told us so we had to pack back up and sleep in a hotel for the night before we headed north into cooler temps learn from our mistakes also learn how to tell how much power you're using and what your battery life is we have a go power controller found out quickly this is not what you need we need to get something like a victron controller or a victron shunt to be able to see our consumption and what our battery life is we are still searching and trying to figure out what we need we also learned that the 160 watt slower suitcase for the side of RV does not have a controller so we can't use it we can only use it to charge our Eco flow but not to add to the solar of our RV number four learn about your fridge we have a 12 volt fridge that runs off our battery that's charged with our solar we bought our RV specifically for this feature so we could Boondock thinking this was the best choice we quickly learned that the 12 volt fridge uses a ton of battery consumption and we were constantly worried about waking up to a dead battery one night Randy had to go out in the middle of the night and sit in the Jeep while it ran to charge up our battery for an hour so that our fridge would still have power in the morning it was so stressful I mean there's boondocking etiquette and you shouldn't be running your generator between the hours of 10 pm and 7 AM we had to learn how to server power so the battery could just focus on the fridge we used our battery powered Camp lights instead of our RV lights we used our Solar Generator to plug in our chargers fan and laptop so we didn't need to run our inverter we also learned what the converter does and the fact that you don't have to have it on when you're not hooked up to shore power we had that on and it was draining our battery because it was just running for nothing we wish we had a propane fridge now comment below and tell us what fridge you have for boondocking and what you prefer we'd love to know your thoughts number five get a solar generator this is a lifesaver seriously this completely saved us so that we can actually stay in our boondocking site for the week despite not having adequate battery solar or generator our Eco flow is 750 watts and we also bought the optional 160 watt solar suitcase that can charge it it charges on Shore power in about an hour and we use it all day long we had our starlink plugged into it our laptop cell phones and some other things it saved us so much money by not having to go to the RV park down the street we paid about 900 for it but we use it when we Overland and it has more than paid for itself number six learn how to conserve this goes for conserving your power so your battery doesn't die quickly so your refrigerator isn't always running conserving fresh water conserving water going down the gray tank conserving how much trash you have so many things that you might not have thought about here are some things we did to conserve our water keep a bowl in each sink to collect the water to prevent it from going down into your great tank you can use this water for flushing your toilet then we had specially marked water bags and used them to fill our gray water so we can take them to the dump station without worrying about our great tank getting full too quickly to conserve our fresh water we learned how to just use a very small stream of water out of the faucets this makes a huge difference we also have a water Miser that conserves water back into the freshwater tank until it gets hot we also turn off the water except to rinse quickly to conserve electricity we used our Solar Generator as mentioned we used our camp lights at night this way we didn't need to use any of our battery power for lighting the RV to save our fridge power we learned quickly to not open it after 5 PM nope it's after five we also did not put warm items in at night or it would run all night when there was no sun to charge our battery no filling the ice trays at night or putting water bottles into the fridge at night to conserve trash we packed all of our trash into plastic shopping bags and tied them one full and took them with us to throw away wherever there was public trash like at the gas station or grocery store this helped a lot number seven find out how to get water and where to dump compendium will help you find dump stations in potable water be sure to find out where these are in proximity to where you want to go and how much the cost is we went to a KOA and they charged twenty dollars to use their dump station and we ended up dumping for free at a Maverick gas station doing your research will help you save time and money most RV parks have dump stations you can use or you can check out campgrounds national parks and gas stations number 8. Safety and Security first off I was concerned that I would be scared to stay in the middle of nowhere I was so relieved to find out that it was not scary at all it felt so safe and secure the people that you see are there for the same reason you are and people who are out to harm people are not typically going to drive to the middle of nowhere to search for people to steal from or hurt that would be much easier for them to Target busy cities we do lock up whatever we can to deter anyone who may be tempted to steal we have roadblocks on everything a hitch lock for the RV and a lock on our Cargo Carrier and always keep our truck locked we have a camera that we can use on the outside to watch the RV door inside view we can bring the camera inside to watch Cooper too however we never left Cooper by himself when we were boondocking we just didn't feel comfortable we also have a waggle pet monitor to watch the temperature inside the RV while we're gone there's times that we take Cooper with us and leave them in the truck when it's cool enough we bring the waggle with us in our truck to monitor the temperature inside we love it because it uses its own cell service so that you can use it without Wi-Fi you may not have cell service where you Boondock for emergencies you will need a backup plan like a satellite phone or you can use the starlink like we do so you can have high speed internet in the middle of nowhere which enables you to use Wi-Fi calling number nine speaking of starlink this was a total game changer for us starlink works in the middle of nowhere even where you don't have cell service it does not run off the cell towers it runs off satellites and there's a lot of them we have been to so many places where we have zero cell coverage however we have high speed internet to work remotely including being in teams meetings or on Zoom plus like we mentioned the bonus of getting Wi-Fi calling it is so worth it for us number 10 know how to find your campsite you may be wondering where do you find Bureau of Land Management or public land that allows you to Camp free we love the Campania map for a lot of things but mostly use our Onyx app that shows you clearly where the BLM land is and what land is privately owned where the trails are Etc we hope you've learned some things to help make store for the products we use and talked about in this video comment below and tell us your boondocking tips and how we can make it easier next time or tell us something that might have surprised you even with all the mistakes we made and had to learn things the hard way we had an awesome time and we can't wait to do it again but smarter next time each time we Boondock it gets easier and easier and we learn a lot more it is so awesome to be able to have the Comforts of your RV in the middle of nowhere with the most beautiful views for free just had steaks sauteed onions what do you think who good boy oh Sunset right there my last walk really but in the morning to head to Mesa Verde we have really enjoyed our stay here Cooper's loved it this Mountain View is gorgeous we did a good job picking up the site and we have a perfect sunset for our last night here it has been such a great week our first week of boondocking we've learned a lot had some challenges but overall it's been awesome we're so thankful for this amazing opportunity and don't take it for granted definitely gonna miss this mountain thank you so much for watching we know your time is valuable and for you to spend your time with us means so much to us if you like this video give it a thumbs up and we would love it if you would subscribe it helps us get noticed by YouTube so that they can show our videos to more people we put a lot of time into making these videos to help you and we'd really appreciate your help as well we are so excited take you with us next week to Mesa Verde National Park it was way better than we ever expected see you next week bye [Music] road trip Classics on the radio [Music] there's no such thing as time now we can go anywhere you want to go thank you okay let me do that again ready you ready yeah Austin yep yep I know as soon as I said I'm like yep yep let me show you you said yep again yep with you

Channel: Roam In Your Home

Views: 26,676

Keywords: rv, rv living, rv camping, camping, full time rv living, rv living full time, rving, rv newbie, rv life, rv lifestyle, roam in your home, boondocking, boondocking tips, things to know to boondock, top 10 things to know, boondocking etiquette, boondocking safety, starlink, campendium, on x, ecoflow, solar generator, inverter generator, 12 volt fridge, how to conserve, how to find dump stations, how to find potable water, how to find blm, how to find public land, how to boondock

Id: merXm0oIpf8

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2022