27 Useful Items for Boondocking and Full Time RV Living

hey everybody i'm luke and i'm jen we're mcniels on wheels other youtubers they might show you a list of 10 or 15 items that are useful to have on boondocking we've got a cool 27. yeah that's value jen let's see you get 27 out of some other youtuber [Music] number one this collapsible dish pan super cool and cheap less than 15 on amazon so i like that it collapses if i want to store it and then you do your dishes in it when you're done you throw your dirty dishwater outside and that eliminates that space in your gray tank my number two most useful item for boondocking is these collapsible silicone tupperware they come in all different shapes and sizes and they collapse fairly small so it's easy to stack them on the shelf and what makes these especially great for boondocking is a lot of times when i make meals i have some leftovers and then we want to eat those leftovers to heat them up in the microwave would use a lot of electricity and we don't want to do that so these silicone things can just go right in the oven and they won't melt all right number three is a bit of a combo so we have this percolator that i got at walmart just made a mess and burned myself and yeah i couldn't deal with that so i use it to boil water and it does a great job of that every morning i boil some water and then i come over here i have my aeropress you can get one of these on amazon for 30 to 40 dollars the rubber seal does wear out after about a year but you can get a replacement one on amazon really cheap too i think i just picked one up for like 10 bucks and then you have these little filters that you get you have a little filter it's just a little piece of a coffee filter cut into a disk you put it in the little grated thing and then you screw it to the bottom of here put it over your cup put in your coffee and then pour your water in wait about a minute and then use this plunger to plunge it down [Music] and then the best part is to clean up all you have to do is unscrew the bottom and push that coffee and the filter right into the trash all cleaned up number four you want to keep some grocery bags hanging around these are handy for all kinds of things but specifically when you are camping out in the wilderness you have no place to put your trash and you certainly don't want to put it outside if you can't burn it in your fire pit then you put it in small bags and you can discreetly throw it out when you go to gas stations in their little trash bins all right number five is the instant pot and air fryer lid now to be honest with you i didn't use these a ton back when we were living in sticks and bricks but now that we're boondocking i'm trying to make as many one-pot meals as i can so i don't have as many dishes to do so i use this for soups stews chili pulled meats all kinds of stuff and the airfryer lid i can make french fries chicken wings chicken parm it does dehydrating it does baking roasting broiling i haven't used all that stuff yet it's kind of new to me so you can get each of these right now on amazon for about 90 each and one important thing is the airfryer lid so just replaces the instant pot lid and when you're using it this is your only appliance that you're plugging in you do not plug in the bottom horrible things will happen probably a fireball will go into the sky so just make sure that you're only plugging in the lid and you'll be good to go all right our number six item i thought was kind of gross at first but when we were in colorado or west virginia maybe both places we had a bit of a problem with a lot of black flies getting in here so we stopped at a local hardware store and we got this fly paper and we hung it from one of these pendant lights and it did the trick within hours all the flies were stuck to the paper and no longer bothering us so number six is fly paper super cheap any hardware store we also have some useful items in the bathroom so this is number seven this is a collapsible bucket use it to wash floors used it to clean the nose and if it's clean which mine is right now you could use it to collect your water in the shower when you're waiting for the water to heat up so that way you're not wasting it use to flush the toilet later or whatever so number seven collapsible bucket for number eight we got the oxygenix shower head from walmart for 27 and it's super efficient with water conservation so i'll show you why when you get in the shower you turn it on first you want to warm up your water and fill up the bucket while you're waiting but then let's say our water is already warm okay and you're going to get all wet and then while you're lathering you flip this switch and it keeps just a trickle running and it keeps the water at the right temperature so when you're ready to rinse off you just switch it back up and you got your shower back this only uses two gallons of water per minute number nine useful thing wet wipes you will find pretty quickly that you're not going to shower as often because you want to conserve water and grating space and that's okay because you're probably out in the middle of nowhere and uh i don't know we've been in some dry climates i haven't really noticed us stinking too much but use wet wipes keep up with your hygiene that way for number 10 i'm going to recommend microfiber towels so these will dry you off really well and they also dry themselves pretty quickly so they're ready for use again the next day or that night or whatever i got um two uh sets of them which included two bath towels each two hand towels and two washcloths and different colors so that luke knows not to touch my towels number 11 is our little buddy propane heater this thing is awesome so we didn't realize when we first set forth on full-time rv living that we would use so much propane but we do we use a lot of propane and the furnace eats tons of propane and also a lot of battery power so to help out with that we got this little buddy heater at tractor supply store for about 90 bucks and this thing we have it hooked up to a 20 pound propane tank like a barbecue grill tank outside and you just kind of set it over to pilot give it a push let's try it oh score and you can see it lights up this film in here and somehow i don't know how this little heater keeps us warmer than the propane furnace that's built into the rig it is awesome so this thing's designed for those little one pound coleman canisters and you can move it around and put it in your tent or put it in your bedroom or whatever but we're running out of propane within four to six hours with those little one pound canisters so we had to buy this hose which was another 45 dollars so we can hook it up to the 20 pound tank and now we're good for days saves us a lot in propane and electricity little buddy if you're going to use one of these little propane heaters in your rig make sure that a window is cracked and you have adequate ventilation for number 12 we have this little no name rechargeable usb fan and this is great both in the winter because we can stick it behind the little buddy and shoot the heat at us and in the summer when we um are boondocking and don't have the electricity to run our air conditioners you might want a few of these how is it do i look cool i think you look super cool all right cool number 13 is our jackery this is a portable lithium-ion battery pack they make them in different sizes this one's a thousand watts so it's split into two different sections we have dc power over here for charging phones and drone batteries and things like that and then we have ac power over here for more ac appliances like a hair dryer or the instant pot or my entire computer station so that we don't have to pull that power from our house batteries that way we always have power in the house batteries to do the most important stuff like keep the fridge running and pull in our slides this is chargeable by plugging it into a normal ac plug we charge it sometimes when we're running the generator anyway um it came with two solar panels 200 watts of portable foldable solar panels and recently we've started taking it with us when we drive around town and we plug it into the inverter in the truck so that we can charge it from the alternator instead of wasting generator power to charge this number 14 this thing it's labeled soowa okey and this is similar to the jackery but much smaller it's also uh it's labeled a solar power generator but it's really just a battery so we use this to charge our phones and small devices so that we don't have to use the house batteries or the jackery number 15 more battery chargers power is very very important to us we charge a lot of things gopros and 360 cameras our normal cameras tons of devices so having batteries around to charge things with is awesome so these are just generic you can buy them this is insignia so i got it from best buy you can get gas stations or whatnot but this one is fantastic this is the anchor pd15 and it's cool because you can just plug it into the wall to charge it and then when it's done it comes with the common cables built into it so you don't have to rush around looking for your cables i love this thing all right so now for number 16 on our list of useful items one of the first things we did when we got this was we replaced the standard locks that it came with with this rv lock is the brand keyless entry it's about 240 dollars and we did that for a couple of reasons number one we didn't really love the idea of a universal lock that had a universal key and a bunch of other people potentially having the same key so we did it for security we also did it so we wouldn't have to carry keys around um it does come with two fobs or you can also just type in whatever code you program number 17. security cameras we started off with these larger real link argus pt cameras and they're great you can move the camera around in any direction but when i mounted them to the rig with double-sided vhb tape they fell off because they're heavy so now we use these inside the rig to wash our dogs and the door when we're gone on the outside of the rig we're using these smaller lighter argus pro cameras and they're only about 70 dollars each we screw them on to these little mounting brackets that i've attached to the rig with vhb tape and when we leave we just unscrew them and that's not gonna work number eighteen this is our proven industries hitch lock this is important so that somebody with a hitch in their uh in their truck can't just pull up and hitch up and take our house and everything in it so this is just a big slab of metal that goes over the kingpin you get a key slap it on there and lock it down now nobody can hitch up and take our stuff this was 225 so number 19 is gonna be personal protection uh for me when i go out hiking in these washes or these wilderness areas if i'm alone i feel better knowing that if i encountered a wild animal that wanted to hurt me that i'd be able to protect myself if i couldn't just run away there's also signs up everywhere saying that there's smuggling happening in this region so i'd rather be prepared and not need it so i carry when i walk or hike i carry this sig sour nine millimeter um you could take bear spray or whatever you're comfortable with number 20 this next item is not really a nice to have we rely on this every day it's very important that this thing starts every time we need it to start so this is the honda e2200i generator it costs about eleven hundred dollars and we went with the honda because we knew we were gonna rely on it so much this rig is primarily powered by solar power but we've been in areas where we haven't seen the sun in a week so it's it's really critical that we have our generator because our truck is diesel and the rest of our rig runs propane we don't want to have to carry around another fuel so this runs off the propane that we already use in the in the rig and we don't have to carry gas which can spill and light fires and fumes and all that jazz we don't want it's bad news so we put in this hutch conversion kit i learned how to do the installation from another youtube channel fate unbound i'll put the link up here and uh i did this myself it wasn't hard i'm not good at that stuff either so don't worry about it you could do it and now we just hook up this propane regulator and hose that comes with the kit screw that onto your propane tank whether that's just a little barbecue tank or a bigger 30 pound like this then we use the propane quick connect here slap that in there and we turn this up hutch mountain gives you a new sticker to replace the stock sticker that comes here and it tells you where to turn this little dial so that it's using propane alright so now we have propane on this regulator comes with a little button press this little button to put some propane into the hose and we give it a few these three pulls three pulls is all it should take because if it's cold out here the last thing you want to do is pull this rip cord 27 times trying to get the thing to start it's important that we maintain this and carry spark plugs and air filters and that you change the oil every 100 hours or so can't have this feeling for number 21 we have a telescoping ladder ours is the extend and climb and it's 15 feet and we got it for about 420 but they make different ones so you open up the velcro strap and then you pull it up piece by piece however tall you want it to be and you're good to go when you get to the top you'll feel a little sway in it but it's okay it should hold you as long as it's weighted what do you mean i'm gonna fall off the front okay close it this is the tricky part you wanna make sure you don't pinch your fingers [Music] so you push in these tabs on each rung and you get your fingers the hell out of the way [Music] that's that very useful item number 22 these zero g hoses these cost about 40 bucks for a 50-foot hose and they're great for a bunch of reasons one of them being that they come in different colors so we know that the fresh water is going to be blue and we don't mix it up with you know dirty water and they don't kink and they squeeze up all small like this so that we can just toss them in there and not worry about it it's an added bonus these velcro straps for the hoses really make it easy as another bonus we have this water bandit and this can help out if you get to a place where you're trying to get some water and the threads are worn or whatever you can just kind of push this thing up on there and then get your water out it's great okay number 23 is a water bladder we got this one it's called an aqua tank for 160 dollars at 60 gallons so what you want to do with this is when you're running out of water and you don't want to hitch up and move your rig to fill your tank this could get you through another few days so the idea is you take this with you to the spigot you found where you can fill up easily and you bring your fresh water hose the blue one and then you attach that to either end whichever end it goes and make sure the other end is closed and wait for it to fill the bladder then you drive this full bladder of water back to your rig and then you want to get a pump so that you can pump the water through so um we just got this one uh 12 volt self plot priming transfer pump they can range in price from anywhere from 50 to 100 depending on how fancy it is and you hook up these alligator clips to your house battery to run the pump and it comes with this little hose that you use to attach from the pump to here and then you attach your your blue hose that goes to the rig on the other side and uh turn it on and it will start pumping water from the bladder into your rig to fill up your tank number 24 ham radio we have a bunch of ham radios it's not just for nerds i promise first of all we have this kenwood 710 installed into the rig so it's actually punched through the firewall underneath the steering wheel and it goes to the battery of the truck so it's always on this serves two purposes for us on one channel we have what's called aprs it's basically like an old form of text messaging and this transmits our location to repeater towers all over the country this way our friends and family can kind of get an idea of where we are and if we go missing they'll know where we last were on the other channel we have this scanning just different radio repeater frequencies some are just of people talking and shooting the and others are emergency frequencies so we have this programmed for these little uh walkie-talkies like jen has in her hand lots of people use these little walkie-talkies because they're cheap and you don't need a license to use them basically families can use them to keep in touch with each other or when we're parking if i can't see jen i can have one of these and she can have one of these but we also have the benefit of having it on the ham radio in the car so we can scan as we're driving around and find people that are having issues or need help and if we're in a situation where we need help we can always get out to somebody a lot of these places don't have cell service so you're on your own with the radio we at least have a chance we also have these little baofeng chinese ham radios it's the same thing as that but it doesn't have nearly as much power so it can't go as far these cost maybe 50 bucks and you do need a license if you're going to transmit on a ham radio there is one exception and that's if you're in an emergency anybody can transmit at any time so you should have some ham radios and since luke programmed these into his ham radio i if he's in the truck and i want to wander off for a ways and i suddenly decide hey luke i'm making cookies tonight yeah that's very important then he knows number 25 solar panels we have 800 watts of solar panels installed on our roof but that's not enough so earlier when we were looking at the jackery i said it came with 200 watts solar panels there they are we use them to charge the rig instead of charging the jackery we have other ways to do that so here we have 400 watts of solar panels two of them are from the jackery and one of them is a renegy suitcase that we picked up on amazon for about 250 bucks you can string together as many of these as your heart desires as long as it's wired all correctly and i'm going to show you how we did that in a new video what you see here is a nice little piece of flex tape and so that's number 26 and it's actually two items you want to carry some flex tape and some dye core with you for any time you get holes or leaks or you're worried about your roof leaking maybe we use the dicor to put the solar panels on the roof to make sure that it wouldn't leak where we screwed it in so these are handy items what happened here was we lost our awning going through a tight gate and it was half on half off just hanging there we couldn't drive like that it left some holes when we took it all off and uh we didn't want bees getting in so we used some flex tape here and some dicor here to patch up the holes number 27 the one whale this thing is awesome the one wheel it's kind of like a skateboard but it's got one wheel it's an electric one wheeled skateboard that can go 20 miles at 20 miles per hour it's a lot of fun it goes on all different terrain and uh it's worth every penny well that's our 27 items thanks for watching this video and if you can think of any items that we missed please leave them down in the comments and if you'd like to see more videos from us about boondocking and our adventures and tips and tricks please subscribe that's value you

Channel: MacNeils On Wheels

Views: 59,457

Keywords: boondocking, rvlife, fulltimervliving, dry camping, full time rv living, how to boondock, free camping, dispersed camping, full time rving, rv living, rv boondocking, dry camping tips and hacks, dry camping tips and tricks, dry camping water supply, dry camping rv, wild camping, living in an rv, rv travel, rv living full time, rv life, full time rv, rv fulltime family, dry camping essentials, rv travel vlog, rv travel videos, living in an rv full time, off grid rv living

Id: f2lEzIedRhw

Length: 21min 58sec (1318 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 19 2022