Yesterday morning I got my first regular shower in weeks. We are finally back on full hook ups which means I have plenty of water and don’t have to worry about filling my tanks. For me this is a massive luxury. Full hook-ups mean that we have power, water and a sewer connections.
There are a lot of reasons to love Boondocking or being on partial hook ups. Here are my reasons that it is not my favorite.
If we’re boondocking or on partial hookups without a sewer connection, I have to wait to do laundry or pay to do it at the laundromat or campground facility. I absolutely love my stackable Splendide washer and dryer. It was a huge bonus that came with our camper. And with all the hiking we do, we can get pretty sweaty and dusty. We do laundry at least a couple times a week. When we are boondocking or on partial hookups, our laundry can pile up quickly.
I also love a nice shower. When we are on partial hookups and I’m worried about filling my tanks or using up my fresh water, we do military showers or we skip days. A military shower simply means that we turn the water on and get wet, turn it off quickly. Soap up, turn it back on and rinse, turn it off quickly. On days when the camper is already cold, this is less than ideal. And skipping days can also be pretty gross if we are out hiking. Either way, it’s not a great solution when the camper is your full-time home.
One of the primary reasons we bought our camper to travel is because we have a dog. We want to be able to leave her in our climate controlled camper while we tour in places that are not dog friendly. This is especially true in the National Parks where dogs are typically not allowed. We don’t leave our generator running if we are not on site. And we have not invested the $10,000- $15,000 necessary to have the large enough solar set up to be able to leave an air conditioner running. When we are planning on being in an area that we know is not dog friendly we book a spot with power.
The cost to run a generator can also really add up. Our calculations are that we use approximately 5 gallons of regular fuel per day to run our generator intermittently. When you weigh the $20-$25 per day on generator cost versus the cost of being somewhere with power included the trade-off is usually not worth the hassle.
Every time we boondock my husband adds more things to his wish list of “if we’re going to boondock more often then we need…” this is really kind of a joke but seriously, if you’re going to boondock the initial investment can really add up.
We don’t always feel comfortable leaving our camper for the day in a remote area. For us there is a perceived sense of safety in numbers. When we are at a state park or a regular RV park with other people nearby we feel much more comfortable leaving our camper during the day and we sleep better at night.
Although we are perfectly willing to do it, we don’t love hauling the poop tank manually back-and-forth to the dump station. Another option would be to pack up our camper and drag it to the dump station to do it all at once. Because of the size of our camper, it’s easier to just haul the honey pot. Since we are currently only able to boondock for about 5 days before filling our tanks, we have to take a few hours of our time to dump if we don’t have a sewer connection.
Despite all our reasons for preferring full hook ups, we still love state parks the best and although I do my darndest to find us great state parks with full hook ups we sometimes choose a beautiful setting knowing that the trade-off will be worth it.
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