Mother Nature’s Playground
Welcome to the natural-world nook of the RV.net Blog. In following posts I will offer tips on how to find killer boondocking campsites in our national forests and deserts, how to maneuver your way about our national parks, how to find campsites when the parks are full, tell you about some great hikes, neat places to paddle, bird and wildlife information and viewing locations, and encourage you to get into the great outdoors a little more, into the wild, uncivilized, unsettled lands of this vast country.
This is the place to look for camping options beyond the manicured RV golf resorts. I won’t talk much about urban trailer parks, the civilized amenities of fancy resort style campgrounds (can we really call them “camp” grounds), and instead I would like to get conversations going (feel free to add your own two cents) on solar power rather than golf scores, snakes and coyotes rather than poodles and chihuahuas, and enjoyment of raw nature rather than online gaming and sitcoms on the tube.
I intend to challenge you to also start—if you haven’t already—thinking green. There are many ways we RVers can make a few slight alterations to our lifestyle to help Mother Nature out of her current difficulties, help conserve our resources, waste less, and do the birds and animals a favor by understanding and helping to keep their homes out of range of bulldozers and strip malls. Better yet, we don’t have to give up our RV Lifestyle to do good deeds for the planet.
And if you don’t agree with me all the time, say so. There is a place here for you to offer your solutions to the rising price of oil and campsites, loss of campgrounds on our public lands, and the degradation and loss of recreation opportunities on our public lands for mineral rights, cattle grazing, and development.
But mostly, I am not here to rant, but to extol the joys of the natural world and the great outdoors that our RVs enable us to enjoy in comfort, with as much solitude as we want, and to seek out ways in which we RVers may enjoy it even more. After all, that’s what RVs were made for.
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Looking for info on solar power and how to employ it in my RVing. I would like to figure out if it is possible and feasible to be completely solar-powered in my 30a fifth wheel – relying on nothing but solar power for my electrical needs.
I am completely unfamiliar with the solar stuff – all I know is you gotta have sun! And in Alaska in the summertime, we have plenty of that! So I am interested in learning more about this technology – heck I may even set my stick house up with it if it works out well!
There are several companies around that specialize on solar for RVs, though there may not be any in Alaska. Use Google and search for RV solar. I bought my solar system from AM Solar (www.amsolar.com) in Eugene, OR. Greg analyzed my rig and power requirement and recommended the right size and type of equipment and I have been very happy and never run out of power. I did not, however, put in a system that would supply enough power to run an air-conditioner, washer-dryer, or ice maker–all high requirement appliances. You could, of course, put up enough panels to run whatever you installed in your rig. Solar and what you want it to do is simply a matter of how much money you want to spend and how much roof space you have–but it works and there are no moving parts to break.
[...] reason I chose the RV Lifestyle was to spend as much time as I wanted in natural surroundings, in Mother Nature’s playground. RVing has enabled me to hike more trails, discover hidden Alpine lakes, track and study wildlife, [...]