BOONDOCKING 101: Newbie guide to FREE CAMPING

When we started RVing, we threw ourselves straight into boondocking without having ever tried it before. There were a few bumps along the way so, today we want to share what we’ve learned and answer as many questions you might have about what boondocking is and what to do about water and electricity. We’re also going to show you how we find boondocking sites so you can try it, too. Boondocking, sometimes called dry camping, is camping without any electrical, water, or sewer hookups. It requires you to be completely self-contained and is often done off grid in unconventional campsites.

It could even refer to spending a night in a store parking lot. And best of all, it’s often free or very low cost. RV boondocking requires you to come prepared and to be self-reliant. When we go boondocking, we still have water and power we just have to use the onboard systems instead of hooking up to an external source like we would when we go to an established campground. Let’s look at how those systems work.

Our travel trailer has fresh water, gray water, and black water tanks on board. Your rig might have something similar and it’s a good idea to know each one’s capacity before heading out as that will come in handy when managing your water consumption. Before a boondocking trip we usually fill our fresh water tank at home based on when we think we’ll have the next chance to fill up. Keep in mind a full water tank means you’re carrying a lot of extra weight and may affect how your trailer handles on the road. Be sure you have enough spare weight capacity to do this.

Along these lines we make sure that the gray and black water tanks are completely empty so we’re not carrying any unnecessary weight and we have maximum capacity. When you’re not hooked up to a water source you need to turn on the pump before turning on the tap. After that, it works just like you’d expect. But what happens if you need more water or need to empty your tanks? Before leaving we look up water and dumping stations on a site called Sani dumps and note down a few just in case we don’t have cell service.

Bear in mind though, that if you do need to take your trailer to fill up water there’s no guarantee that your boondocking site will still be vacant when you get back. That’s why we also carry a small portable tank that we can fill to tide us over until we move on. For our electrical needs while boondocking we rely on our trailer’s batteries and we carry a backup generator. Batteries will let us run the lights and radio but not larger things like the 110 outlets or microwave we have since upgraded our system with two Renogy smart lithium batteries that do give us the ability to charge and use electronic devices like our phones or laptops. The generator we carry has enough power to recharge our batteries and use the other outlets sparingly, but we prefer to use it as little as we can.

The propane tanks on board fuel the barbecue, furnace, fridge, and oven so we’re able to still cook and keep our food fresh. But nothing beats a meal made on the campfire, which is what we try to do as much as possible. When we run out of propane we can refill tanks at many gas stations or Costco or do a tank exchange at many grocery and hardware stores. So, we have a lot of the same resources available to us that we would with hookups the source is just what’s changed. The trick to being able to boondock for extended periods of time is managing these resources carefully.

Unlike with hookups our water and energy supplies are limited, so here are a few things we do to conserve our resources and maximize our stay. Installing a water conserving shower head is a good first step as well as turning off the water with the switch on the shower head while lathering up. We also don’t take a full shower every single day if we can help it. That might sound a little gross at first, but there are other effective ways to freshen up including sponge baths, body wipes, and waterless shampoo which all use very little to no water. We also prepare as much food as we can before leaving so we don’t have to use the oven or barbecue for extended periods.

Our campfires also do double duty by cooking a lot of our food. To save battery power, we turn off the water pump between uses, use the lights sparingly, and use low energy methods for heating and cooling. For example, wearing layers, bringing blankets, having the windows open for a breeze and parking in shaded areas. We check water and energy levels about three times a day to gauge usage and estimate when we might need to refresh. Because we need to be self-reliant while boondocking and we’re often in remote places with very few services we try and bring any tools we might need, including jumper cables and a portable battery booster, a portable air compressor to maintain tire pressure, a bottle jack torque wrench and spare tire in case of a flat, orange traffic cones, walkie-talkies, a full toolbox with wrenches screwdrivers multimeter and more, and finally a sealed bin to store and pack out our trash.

We wish we could say that there was one source to find every boondocking site, but that hasn’t been our experience so far. We find that using a combination of resources is really the best method to finding good boondocking sites. So far, we’ve used some free apps and websites like iOverlander.com, freecampsites.net and free roam.

App These sites have helped us find everything from Walmart parking lots that accept overnight stays to out-of-the-way off-grid sites we can use for several days. We’ll link to them in the description below. There are also subscription-based sites like BoonDocker’s Welcome and Harvest Hosts which we haven’t tried yet. Another way we find free or nearly free boondocking sites is by word-of-mouth and from various Facebook groups we’ve joined and even in the local community near our home base. Finding great boondocking sites does take some time and research, but we’ve been pretty successful with it so far.

Boondocking with an RV really isn’t all that different from camping with hookups. Yes, there are compromises that have to be made, but we find that those trade-offs are worth the great places we get to camp, chance to reconnect with nature and the cost savings. Also remember to leave your boondocking site cleaner than when you got there and leave no trace. If you want to try boondocking but aren’t quite ready for the complete off-grid experience might we recommend trying a site without hookups at your favorite provincial or national park? That way you won’t be far from resources if you find that you need them.
We love boondocking and hope that you will too. And if you enjoyed this video we’d really appreciate if you could give us a like, subscribe, hit that notification bell, and share this video with your friends. It really helps us grow our community and reach a wider audience. And in the meantime, keep on living the life you’ve imagined.

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