Our Big Summer Purchase
One of the philosophies we had was to get on the road before making big decisions, expensive modifications, and purchases.
Rooftop solar? Lithium battery bank?
All great ideas and would certainly help the right campers but not a necessity to get started.
Many people new to the lifestyle or maybe getting back to it as life has changed, can quickly become overwhelmed with decisions or financially burdened.
We have seen and heard stories of folks buying all the upgrades so they can boondock for weeks, only to find out they do not even like boondocking.
Our plan was to get on the road with what we had and see how we preferred to camp.
The King and Queen enjoying a Wyoming sunset powered by our Renogy Portable Solar Panels.
We left our sticks and bricks with two standard flooded batteries, a Renogy 200-watt portable solar panel case, and a Predator 3500 (ultra-quiet and a good buy!) to power our Queen.
After boondocking, camping in State Parks, private RV Resorts, and a host of other options we realized boondocking was our favorite.
We loved getting off grid, away from the hustle and bustle, and to be as immersed as possible in nature.
Seeing new wildflowers bloom, watching wildlife, sunrises and sunsets just as natured intended brought us happiness.
It also meant we needed to bring our resources with us wherever we ended up.
This learning process led to us realize we had a gap in our power system.
Charging phones, running the lights and appliances in our Airstream was no problem for our solar panel and our batteries on most days.
If we needed air conditioning or the furnace for longer periods, or a boost on cloudy days, the generator was more than powerful enough to handle the job.
The issue was in between those two scenarios.
Charging computers, running a small diffuser, de-humidifier, or soundboard to record an episode of our podcast, all presented an issue.
The generator was way more power than we needed for these devices, it makes noise, and it burns fuel, which is another expense.
We needed something quiet for recording, portable so we could take power with us on the go, and self-sustaining.
After much research, seriously Andrea is a researcher!!
We made our big summer purchase to fill this gap and set us out on the road again in year two.
What Did We Buy?
Our Jackery 1000-watt solar powered generator allows us to have clean and quite power we can take with us indoors or outdoors while bridging the gap between our small power needs and when we need to crank up the generator.
Best of all it allows us to have power outdoors viewing nature with as little disruption as possible.
I can now set up internet, computers, and a soundboard to work and record anywhere we feel inspired! (Picture of it all outside)!
For the record we are not compensated by Jackery (although we would love to be 😊) this was an honest story shared to help answer some questions we get about how we camp.
We hope it also inspires others to realize that getting on the road is the most important step!