If you start reading about off-grid electricity or RV boondocking, you’ll come across mention of phantom loads pretty quickly. A phantom load is something that draws power but isn’t doing anything useful for you directly (and might be keeping itself secret, just to piss you off). Reading about these, they sound like a major obstacle to off-grid living, but our personal experience has shown that these loads are manageable once you understand them.
Read MoreHere are some photos of how we spent our time in Borrego Springs when we weren't hanging out with other RVers at camp.
Read MoreIf you have magic rectangles on your roof that turn sunlight into electricity, you probably want to make sure they get plenty of sun. You probably would go out of your way to make sure nothing else on your roof is casting shadows on them, right? But that’s pretty hard, on an RV roof. There’s not much space, and lots of other things up there to cast shadows. So what about little shadows? Exactly how much do you need to freak out about shading on your solar panels?
Read MoreA commonly asked question by soon-to-be-travelers and non-travelers is: Do you get lonely on the road? The answer we always saw on other full-timers websites was no because they had this great community of friends who also lived on the road.
Read MoreIn Electrical System Design - Part 1 I broke the electrical systems of our trailer (the Toaster) into the “solar” side and the “load” side, and discussed the solar equipment we are using. This post describes the other half of the system -- the loads, and how we use them.
Read MoreMy initial thought after seeing Government Wash, our boondock site at Lake Mead, was that it looked like the place had blown up. There were rocks everywhere.
Read MoreThis is the third part of a four part series that talks about what prevents our RV from being perfect for us, along with potential solutions for the problems.
Read MoreI had the opportunity to be a guest writer for LifeEdited, a great site focused on showing "how to design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy. It's life. Edited."
Read MoreThis is the second part of a four part series that talks about what prevents our RV from being perfect for us, along with potential solutions for the problems. This specific post will talk about batteries.
Read MoreBack home I showered daily. Ok, sometimes I'd skip a day if I was lazy or just hadn't sweated enough. But there wasn't ever a need to keep track because I showered whenever I wanted to. I didn't have to think about whether there was enough water or enough electricity to shower. Since in living the Toaster, I don't always get to shower when I want to.
Read MoreWriting the post When Was The Last Time You Showered got me wondering - how often do other people who live on the road shower when boondocking (aka dry camping)? Fill out the survey and let us know!
Read MoreWhenever I think of the desert, the word empty finds its way to my tongue. I find it to be an empty and desolate landscape. Then I worry about how long I can last in it - the lack of trees, of greenery, of water. The things I’m used to having around me.
Read MoreOur trip through California was a quick one for many reasons. But we still got to see a lot.
Read MoreOur Toaster, with its ability to be off-grid and use minimal fossil fuel, may sound like a perfect rig to some...and a nightmare to others. For us it's literally a dream come true. But as with all dreams that become a reality, it's not perfect. (We still adore you, Toaster!) In a four part series, I'm going to go over the downsides to our RV that prevent it from being perfect, along with potential solutions. This post will talk about water, with the batteries, size and heating posts to follow.
Read MoreWe wanted to put in two really good vent fans when we rebuilt our trailer. We were eliminating the rooftop A/C, so would rely on these fans for all our cooling. The Fantastic Fan products have a lot of reviews attesting to their power and cooling capacity, with several people claiming that they are good enough to seriously cut down on A/C usage. So that’s what we chose to install...
Read MoreWe noticed a few days ago that we didn't seem to be getting as much power from our solar panel array as we used to, in spite of some really clear skies. So we took a closer look at our panels and decided they must be dirty.
Read MoreWe left Washington and headed straight into Portland. Here is where our travel "plans" ended (by plans I mean very vague plans that sounded like this, “Yes, we’re going to keep heading south.”). While I had a lot of places I wanted to go in Oregon it would have meant crisscrossing the state a dozen times.
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