Boondocking, Whats Your Record?

Hi,

There hasn't been a lot of posts here so thought I would post and ask the question what's the longest someone has boondocked. I realize that if you have a bigger rig and have bigger tanks, that probably will increase your chances of staying longer. Some places put limits on how long you can stay but you can alway move down the road to the next spot.

I think the longest we have been able to not move the RV in a spot has been 12 days. We weren't really trying and are eager to try to break that record sometime. Obviously you want to enjoy an area and have a good time. You don't want to run out of resources or strand yourself. I also suppose you could bore yourself if you stay in a region too long but thought I would ask.

Wow that's a long time. Think we've managed about 5 days!

Six weeks for me.  This was on a chunk of private land out in the middle of nowhere so not limited to X days.

No power, electric, septic, or generator - all solar. 150 gallons of fresh water, 120 gallon holding tank.

My limiting factor seems to be the gray water tank.  If I'm in a place where I can just let gray water drain, my water and black tank will last around 13 days.

  We’ve managed 21 or 22 days....but, did dump the grey tank at around day 17 or 18! We bring an additional 55 gallons of water, as our fresh tank is only 80 gallons. The “challenge”....keep the 55 gallon drum of water “liquid”, when the night time temps drop to single digits or a bit cooler!  The black tank has never really been an issue.... but, I get to go “check” on the local “flora” occasionally! 

My record is only 6 days at Doheny State beach , and the grey tank is always an issue.

But here in California... 'Boondocking' has taken on a different meaning with the homeless RV living epidemic. 

We lasted 14 days at Quartzsite last year. Maybe could have gone a couple more days.

Three months at the Quartzsite LTVA rally site in 1999/2000.

We (Jayne Murray and myself) each brought our own trailer to Quartzsite, and rather than break camp to dump and get water, we shared four 50 gallon barrels in the bed of my pickup truck.  Two for fresh water and two for waste.  Got them for $5 each from a local dairy before we left WA, lots of horse owners up there used them for arena obstacles, etc.

We decided to live fairly normally instead of drastically conserving water so we shuttled them to and from the dump station about once a week. 

The waste barrels laid on their sides in the truck bed and we used a macerator pump and hose to get the black and grey tank contents into them through one of the bungholes.  The other bunghole in each barrel had a standard 2" pipe thread and I adapted them to a pair of 3" waste valves.  When we got to the dump station I lowered the tailgate and used a regular sewer hose to let them drain normally.

The freshwater barrels stood on end behind the cab and I filled them using a water hose inserted through one of the bungholes. Whenever we went to Blythe for groceries we'd fill the barrels at the city park because it had better water than the Quartzsite LTVA.  When we returned to the trailers we let the barrels siphon into each trailer's freshwater tank fill.

All of our electricity came from my then-new Honda EU1000i generator.  It ran about 3 hours a night while we watched TV and kept both rigs' batteries charged up.  We refilled it's two gallon gas can about once a week.  I still have the Honda and it runs fine.

We've boondocked for a month a couple of times on a private corporate tree farm in the Adirondacks. We only used the onboard tanks for late night bathroom trips, using standard trail camping methods the rest of the time. Since it was summer weather, bathing was done in a nearby stream and small waterfall that also supplied our fresh water needs. Drinking water was run through a Lifestraw Family filter. Our power needs were handled by dual batteries with a quiet 1KW generator running a couple of hours daily to recharge. Advancing age has limited us to about a week at a time there now.

Wow,

I'm amazed at some of the time lengths but there are resourceful people on here. I've looked at the Honda generators. They advertise 6 hours on 3 gallons of fuel at a half load. Seems like one could plug into one of those and use it for the heat of the day and cooking and TV at night before quiet hour (if there is TV reception).

I think they suggest a gallon of water for each person per day. That might be low in an desert environment where the dry air just sucks out the moisture in you. We have blue water containers that I would use, take with us if we were going to try to break our record. Our main drawl back is tank size.

We have a tiny trailer with small holding tanks.  Fresh water is 42 gallons and each waste tank is 35 gallons.  We have two batteries.  Our personal record is 5 days.  We weren't going for a record and could have squeezed in one more day I think.  We drink bottled water, so the fresh tank is used for every other day showers, flushing, and dishes.  The black tank seemed to be our limiter, but I don't trust the sensors so who knows.  We also have a generator and 100W solar.

I haven't really done this yet more than one night in a spot, but am looking forward to it! I don't think ours will be such long times though because there are 7 of us, but we'll try!

3 months or so. We do move because that's the rule. I promise we do

I guess I mis-understood the question. I thought it was more along the lines of how long can you make the resources in your rig last in a boondocking scenario.  Obviously, a person can stay parked in one spot forever by bringing in water as necessary and calling the poo truck when full.  My bad... sorry.

Hi JDOnTheGo and all,

I was just wondering how long people could boondock using various methods and there are some creative ones here.

It seems using the  Lou Schneider method, you would want to label your drums vary carefully.  ;D  Obviously you would need to replenish your water, fuel and food sources with an extended stay. We have used freeze dried foods to keep the weight down (think I've mentioned that multiple times on the forum) but that requires water. Our main problem is the gray tank as well. Wonder if a tote tank might extend the time. What I wondered (since we don't have a pickup) where I would store the tote tank when full? Twenty or so gallons is a fair amount of weight. If they seal good, perhaps a winch, to crank up the back side of the RV when ready to dump.

I can pretty much get along just hiking and enjoying the scenery without having to run gadgets all the time. Astronomy by night.

14 days at Q without dumping or taking on water, except filling a 5 gal container of water every once in a while after 10 days.

With our previous trailer (40 gallon black, 80 gallon gray, 80 gallon fresh) we went once for 9 days. It took using the campground outhouse some and showers 2 days out of 3. We were quite comfortable staying 7 days without much work though. We used solar and generator as needed for power. With the current coach, we have gone 7 days. It has more fresh and black, but the gray is about the same. Power is still solar with a generator backup.

I lived in a 25 ft trailer at my property for six months while I built my house. Toilet facilities were via an outhouse I erected, and bathing was done at the local swimhole. For drinking, I had bottled water, and filled up some 5 gallon water jugs at my brothers.  Im not sure if this qualifies for boondocking, but I had a genny I ran at night to keep my batteries up, and cooked on the propane stove and bbq outside. I was glad to get out of the trailer as winter was coming fast.

muskoka guy said:

I lived in a 25 ft trailer at my property for six months while I built my house. Toilet facilities were via an outhouse I erected, and bathing was done at the local swimhole. For drinking, I had bottled water, and filled up some 5 gallon water jugs at my brothers.  Im not sure if this qualifies for boondocking, but I had a genny I ran at night to keep my batteries up, and cooked on the propane stove and bbq outside. I was glad to get out of the trailer as winter was coming fast.

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    ?Not? boondocking in the truest sense, but, IMO....you may be the winner here! If you had completed your stay with a winter involved....hands down winner!  ;D

camperAL said:

Hi JDOnTheGo and all,

It seems using the  Lou Schneider method, you would want to label your drums vary carefully.  ;D  Obviously you would need to replenish your water, fuel and food sources with an extended stay. We have used freeze dried foods to keep the weight down (think I've mentioned that multiple times on the forum) but that requires water. Our main problem is the gray tank as well. Wonder if a tote tank might extend the time. What I wondered (since we don't have a pickup) where I would store the tote tank when full? Twenty or so gallons is a fair amount of weight. If they seal good, perhaps a winch, to crank up the back side of the RV when ready to dump.

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The freshwater barrels were blue.  Wastewater barrels were white with dump valves attached to them.  No chance of getting them mixed up.   

As far as lifting the waste barrels into the truck, that's where the macerator pump and hose came in.  The barrels stayed in the truck bed and the macerator pumped the waste uphill into them.  The only lifting was to raise one end of the almost empty barrel when dumping to get the last bit of waste out.  That's also why I used the translucent white barrels for the waste, so I could see that they were actually empty.