Boondocking vs Full hookups

[Spur]

What do you prefer?

[Vaneta]

Full hookups

[Jim-n-Ash]

We've only recently started camping with full hookups, and we like 'em, but we are happy at Forest Service campgrounds where there are firepits and tables, but no hookups (and not even any phone service). We have good-sized tanks, and if there's no water, we can bring our own. (When there is water, we have to put it in a container and take it back to the trailer.) We like both.

[need-a-vacation]

If an option, I would have to say we prefer to at least have electric during any summer trips for the a/c. My wife gets hot way to easy when sleeping, so much so that the window in the house is kept open a little during the winter, here in Michigan where we can see -20* or even colder temps!!!

Most of the time when on our big trip of the year we have electric only on the site we get. But our friends have full h/u. So we do run a fresh water hose over to eliminate the need to fill the tank. And a grey garden hose long enough to run back to their site to drain the grey tank when needed.

Side note for those that don't have water h/u, but can fill jugs- get a battery powered kerosene pump to make it easy to transfer water. Works great!!!

[oldmanAZ]

We like both and don't think we could pick one to the exclusion of the other.

I will say that in many respects, staying with full hookups for a few days allows us to get ready for our next boondocking stop(s). We don't usually take advantage of the pools, activities, etc. usually available in many full hookup sites.

The exception to that is Ft.Wilderness in WDW!

[Jagiven]

I like boondocking, DW likes having electric. Having water and sewer no big deal. Even when we have them we don't use enough water to dump during the weekend.

[Rustysocket]

Full Hookups and paved level sites are what I prefer, that is not how it always works out though.

[lx22f/c]

We live and camp in Texas. Full hooks for me.


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[hoppers4]

Full hookups here.

[canadiankid]

Electric is preferred. Have never actually had full hook ups, no sewer. Having water was nice but not necessary, electricity is nice tho! Keep it cool for kids naps and such.

[BCK]

Getting spoiled as we get older and prefer at least power and water if we can but still camp quite a few weekends a year in our provincial parks and similar without hookups.

[SouthCo]

Have done both and will take a full hookup.

[Tom_OC]

We are good either way. We try to get hook ups when available (at least electricity and water) Sometimes that isnt an option. We never rule out a place because of no hook ups. The USFS has wonderful sites where boon docking is required as well as the State Parks and Beaches here in CA. (love my generator)

[BuddyRay]

We pick where we want to camp based on scenery, activities, etc. It it has hookups that's cool but not required. EXCEPT in very hot weather - then the DW insists on at least AC. But we do most of our camping in Spring and Fall - Summer is lake season.

[Fire_Instructor]

Each has its place. Full hookups are nice, but if you are properly equipped and know how to dry-camp, that opens up a lot of possibilities otherwise unavailable.

We've dry-camped for as long as 14 dwys straight, utilizing 300w of solar into a big battery bank, occasional generator use, a blue tote, and a 40-gallon water bladder for refills. Lots of beautiful state and national park opportunities available if you can dry-camp. Add in a few NA$CAR races, which also require dry-camping....

[SmokerBill]

Boondocking/ dispersed camping. Just because boondocking locations are far removed from the intricacies of human interaction.

I currently have full hookups at my maintenance host position site, and to me, it's strange having all the water, both hot and cold, that I can use. Seems kinda wasteful.

[aqua]

I find with full hook-ups, your packed in like sardines. where as no hook- ups and you've usually got a bigger site

[Ela1948]

As time goes on and we get better set up, we prefer dry camping unless it's very hot. Generally speaking, you get less people and better scenery if dry camping! I find it to be a lot of fun learning how to make the most out of what you have!!

[Bassdogs]

Have equipped our White Hawk for all camping options. With Honda 2000 and portable dump tote we can boondock without giving up creature comfort. We love the COE and Natl forest CGs because they are in beautiful locations and often lack the crowds that you find in STate parks. We do not shy away from full hookup sites, and will seek out electric sites during the AC months.

[RoyBraddy]

We prefer camping off the power grid. To me this sort of makes us RV CAMPERs verses RV TRAVELERS...

I did however have to do alot of work on my OFF-ROAD POPUP camper to make this more enjoyable and get to use most of the modern appliances installed on the POPUP trailer. Our POPUP has just about all of the modern appliances on-board just less floor space to walk around in. For us this is great as it makes us spend alot of time outside under the tree cover next to the creek hehe...

When you are off-grid PLAN Bs are very important... We can do quite well for up to two weeks without doing damage to our battery bank...

This is all planned out to be to run all of the modern appliances we like which does not include the air conditioner and the high wattage microwave but everything else is fair game for us. We watch HDTV every night relaxing after a fun day outside. I do carry one of those small white faced manual operated small microwaves and it works just fine off my battery system warming up things using a small power Inverter setup.

We end up drawing around 20AMPS DC current from the battery bank between 5PM to 10PM each evening running all of the items we want to run. This along with the normal parasitic DC power drains will run our batteries down to their approximate 50% charge status and at 8AM each morning we will run our 2KW Honda generator when allowed for around three hours to get our battery bank back up to its 90% charge state so that we can do this all over again for the next day/night run off our batteries.

I have enough room on my small foot print trailer roof to install two 120WATT Solar panels on one end and maybe a 240WATT Panel on the opposite end of the roof. This will not produce enough DC charging current for my battery bank to get it recharged back up to its 90% charge state before I lose high sun so I will still have to run my 2KW Honda Generator for around 1 hour to get past the very high initial DC Current required when the batteries are first hit with the 14.4VDC charge rate. Each battery in the battery bank will want to demand around 17-20AMPS DC current when 14.4VDC is applied to them and this will reach a 90% charge state in around three hours time. After the batteries tapper back in their DC current demand then the solar panels should do just fine finishing my 90% charge state cycle before I lose high sun.

This is what we go though each day when camping off the power grid. The only reason we can't stay longer than 12-14 days is most off-road camping spots we have around here does not allow us to run our generator for more than a few hours at a time. We have very limited dispersed camping locations around here on public land. We need to to recharge our battery bank to a full 100% charge state if doing more than 12-14 charge cycles of 50% to 90% otherwise this will start doing damage to our battery bank. A full 100% charge time takes around 12-13 hours for us which is better to do at home or somewhere where we have electric avaiable. Thats a long time to run my 2KW Generator even if it was allowed...

Roy Ken