As a full time travel couple we spend out time boondocking in a truck camper. In fact, the whole point of going on this journey was to get off the beaten path and explore remote areas whenever possible. Therefore, we try to boondock as much as we can! Boondocking is usually free, although some areas require a permit or a pass. When you boondock, there are no connections to water, electric, or sewer. It’s just a piece of land to park your camper and spend some time. Boondocking in a truck camper is all about conservation and using space efficiently. In this article we will share our 5 boondocking essentials. We also made a YouTube video, check it out here! This article contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. Thank you for your support!
1. Water
Make sure you bring enough water. Having enough water can be difficult when boondocking in a truck camper, because they tend to be smaller than other RVs. Our truck camper has a 38 gallon fresh water tank which usually lasts us about 3-4 days (longer if we need to). We also carry 4 6-gallon water jugs for extra water, which gives us an additional 3-4 days. Whenever our tank gets low, we dump one of the jugs in. However, when we are down to just 2 water jugs, we try to find water as soon as possible.
When we are in the western part of the continent, there are usually many places to get water for free or very cheap. When those resources are not available, Scott and I tend to ask places like fire departments, gas stations and home improvement stores for water. Usually people are very understanding and they’re willing to help. If we can’t find any free water, we will go to Walmart or similar places and fill our jugs using a kiosk. Most Walmart Supercenters have water filling stations, we have paid $0.25-$0.39/gallon and it’s pretty affordable.
We try to be conservative with water. The biggest uses of water are showering and doing dishes. We chose a shower head and kitchen sink faucet that give us a lot of control over water usage. Our Oxygenics Fury RV shower head has a lot of different modes and lets us adjust the flow rate. The camper came with this shut off valve that turns the water off completely, so you don’t have to fiddle with the knobs while showering. We let the dishes pile up in a metal bowl with soapy water and let them soak throughout the day. Before we go to bed we wash them all at once. It saves us a lot of water and makes the cleanup process way easier.
2. Food
Bring more food that you think you’ll need. Whenever we plan on boondocking in remote areas we fill our fridge and freezer with food. We don’t have a ton of space in there, but it’s enough for both of us for several days. Our camper has a sliding pantry where we keep canned goods, jars, spices, vitamins and supplements. Scott and I store bulkier items like bread, chips and cereal in our top cabinets, we try to utilize as much space as we can. We also have another cabinet underneath the stove where we keep our dry goods, like rice and pasta. Everytime we boondock far from services we prepare our emergency stash of food. We have a dedicated tote box for additional dry food and canned goods. We also keep extra sauces there in case we run out of them.
3. Power
If you are going out to the boondocks, you need to bring some kind of power supply with you. Not only does your camper need it to run virtually everything in it, but you probably need to charge your cell phones and anything else you would want to use while you’re out. For us, we live and work full time here and our power needs are pretty high. Scott and I usually leave our laptops running 24 hours a day and that eats up a lot of power.
To give ourselves extended run time between charging we’ve upgraded our batteries from the original AGM batteries that were installed. The 2 of those gave us only about a 100 AH of usable power, which was good for about half a day. The Lithium batteries that we are using now are custom designed. Our Cirrus 920 truck camper has the battery storage underneath the dinette seat. That puts some space restrictions on what we can fit here. Scott and I have a total of 600 AH of usable batteries, they are very rugged and easy to service. These batteries power all of our 12 Volt accessories, charge our cell phones and run all of the equipment that we have.
The batteries are also hooked up to the inverter. We have a 2000 Watt Xantrex inverter and it’s a tight fit, but it’s been working really well for us! During some really hot weather, Scott and I were able to test our batteries by using the inverter to power the A/C. We got 12-14 hours of run time before the batteries were completely dead and we were really happy with that. Scott and I are also able to run the microwave and convection oven as long as we need. The use of the oven has really helped us increase the variety of meals we can prepare. The flexibility that comes with having extra power makes boondocking in a truck camper much more comfortable. If we want to bake something in the oven for an hour, we can do that and it won’t affect our batteries too much.
4. Fuel
Another big consideration while boondocking in a truck camper or any RV, is fuel. Two of the big fuel sources are gas for our generator and propane for heat, hot water and cooking. Our truck camper has dual 20lb propane tanks that slide out and they come equiped with an automatic transfer valve. There’s the potential of running both of the tanks empty and not having any propane left. That’s why we make sure that we always leave one of the tanks shut off. Therefore, when it runs out of propane we know that we have one propane tank left. That would be an indicator for us to go and refill the empty tank. We try to always keep the other tank topped off just in case.
Our favorite place to fill our tanks is Tractor Supply. They accurately charge you per gallon and the staff is trained on how to properly fill the tanks. We are really happy with their service and we’ve driven many miles out of the way just to have Tractor Supply fill our tanks.
We store gas for our generator on the front rack of the truck. Scott and I don’t want to put any gasoline in the truck and we don’t have any other place to put it, so this setup has been working great. We use bungee cords to secure the tank and it hasn’t moved yet. We might need to get another gas tank, because we’re going through so much with the generator. Since we should be getting the parts for the alternator soon, we should be able to have that installed and skip the gas. Once Scott and I are able to finish the solar and alternator charging setup that should complete our power system. We will make videos about that and share all of the problems we’ll encounter.
5. Trash
While we’re boondocking, there’s usually no place to dispose of our trash. That means we have to store it. We use this small stainless steel box as our daily trash can. It fits on our door and works perfectly with small shopping bags. Whenever we go shopping we save our shopping bags and store them in this Camco Bag Disperser. We mount it on the door behind our kitchen cabinet, this gets it out of the way and allows us to store a lot of trash bags.
Once our trash can is full, we’ve been putting our bag inside of a normal size kitchen bag and store it on the passenger side of the floor in our truck. This allows us to free up some space in the camper and prevent leaks and bad smell. We learned to never leave trash outside. It attracts animals, makes a huge mess and it’s just not a smart thing to do.
The benefits of using shopping bags for trash are many! First of all, they’re free! They’re also small enough to fit in a regular size trash barrel that you find in most shopping centers. That means we don’t need a dumpster to dispose of our trash.
Additional Tips
There are few other tips we learned while traveling full time.
- It’s important to have quarters, they are super useful! We use quarters for laundry, parking, vending machines, dump stations and when filling up with water. Now, during the coin shortage, we’ve experienced troubles getting them, so we try to stock up on them whenever we can. We use old prescription bottles to store our quarters. These bottles are very durable and fit in our pockets nicely.
- Cell phone booster and a Wifi repeater are another must for us. We work on the road and it’s important to stay connected. For the cell phone booster we got a weBoost Drive X 4G. For a wireless hotspot we use MoFi 4500 Cellular Hotspot/Modem/Router and it’s been working great. To round out our connectivity options, we have an Alfa WiFi Camp Pro 2 WiFi repeater, which saved us so many times when there is no cell service.
- We also try to conserve water and power as much as we can. The longer we can go without refilling our tanks and charging batteries, the longer we can stay out in the boondocks. So Scott and I make sure that our faucets are not leaking and that nothing is running unintentionally.
This is just our list of essential tips and tricks for boondocking in a truck camper. After traveling full time for about a year we see these topics as our bare minimum to be able to boondock and not worry about basic needs. We still like staying at campgrounds from time to time to dump our tanks, fill up with water and charge our batteries. Campgrounds also offer a break from some of the challenges of living on the road. However, the costs quickly add up and we don’t like spending money on something that we don’t need. Building our setup to keep us self sufficient has really enabled us to explore deeper and see more and we love it! You can read more about our adventures here!