We love fall camping, but fall camping means winter camping is right around the corner.
And last year we were RV newbies and ran into a situation in Texas that was ...
When we went to feel the furnace system, we realized it wasn't working anymore. You can
now see our breath in the Airstream. We have officially used all of our battery. Keep your
fingers crossed for us because at this point, it's like 21 degrees outside.
We got our butts handed to us and that's one of the main reasons we wanted to shoot this
video so that you can learn from all of our mistakes. And we can share some of the things
that we've picked up along the way, things we've learned on our own, and a lot that we've
learned from followers such as yourselves. Because let's be real. You do not want to
be us in the Texas freeze.
First things first, if you were like we were a year ago and you don't know your rig and
you really are new to RV life, my first tip is really try to avoid winter camping. The
best way to have a positive winter camping experience is to know your rig inside and
out before you give it a shot. But in case you can't do that, there are some essential
things that you absolutely have to have for your RV to make winter camping work. So come
this way. Let's talk about the first one.
One of the problems we ran into in Texas was that they were dealing with some pretty significant
power fluctuations. One minute you'd have power, the next minute you didn't. And unfortunately
this led to a lot of power surges. Thankfully we had a surge protector at the time, but
if we didn't, that could wreak havoc on your electrical system. So one of the main tips
for winter camping is to always make sure you have a surge protector. Now this role
applies year round, but especially when you may have some crazy power fluctuations with
your power grids. And it seems that in colder weather we've experienced more power outages.
Even in this campground that we're staying at right now. Got a little cold, we dealt
with some power issues, lost power for several hours at a time. So make sure you get your
surge protector, which brings us to our next winter camping essential.
The best way to deal with power outages is have a backup power supply. And the best way
to do that and have power on hand is to have generators. Now we've got 2 2,000 watt generators
that we run with a parallel kit to give us enough power to power AC units. And if it's
really hot, you'd want that. But if it's really cold, you'd want that too, because it powers
up pretty much anything that you would need, including your heat pump. And in our situation,
we have tank warmers that are electric so that would help with that as well.
It's also important, not only that you have generators, but when we got stuck in the Texas
freeze, we had only used our generators once before. And to be straight with you, it really
wasn't all that successful.
Is it out of gas?
Okay, yup. I'm walking away.
If we had known more about our generators, when we got stuck in the Texas freeze, we
also would've known that we didn't have to run both of our generators at the same time
just because we have a parallel kit. It's really important that when you're winter camping,
especially in an emergency, that you are conserving as much fuel as possible. So make sure if
you haven't already spent some time, really getting to know your generators and you may
find yourself in a winter camping situation, do that.
So in addition to the generators, you're of course going to need some fuel. Because like
in this instance, it only has a capacity of around one gallon. So it's really, really
important to have some backup fuel. And in our situation we need two types of fuel. So
if you have a diesel truck, you're going to need a second can as well. Just so you're
clear, there are some generators that run off of diesel, and there are some that run
off of propane and there are some that are dual fuel as well. So if you're looking for
something that can run off of gas and propane, there are options out there.
Another reason that these babies are important is because if you run into a winter situation
where it's an emergency and the power is out, the odds of it being out for gas stations
is actually pretty high too. And we can tell you from personal experience, searching for
gas in a winter storm is way less than ideal.
Not use fuel that often and you're driving around with it, it's very important to get
some stabilizer for your fuel because fuel degrades over time, and this will keep your
fuel fresh for up to 24 months. All right, so this was one of the funniest things we
learned from the Texas freeze. When we lost power, we just automatically assumed that
our solar panels, which come equipped with some RVs, would just charge the batteries
miraculously. But what we didn't consider is the fact that our solar panels, they were
covered in snow and we had no way to get up on top of the solar panels to clean them.
So great reason to have a ladder is to be able to get up on top of your rig and wipe
the snow off of your solar panels so your batteries can adequately charge.
Two other essentials for winter camping is A, extra blankets. Make sure you just have
them in your rig. I know it's kind of annoying to store them, but find a place and make it
happen. It's great for emergencies. You can also throw them in the back of your tow vehicle,
which is helpful as well, just in case something were to happen while you were towing. Second
is buddy heaters. So our Airstream has a built in propane heating system. So we don't actually
have these, but there are a lot of RVs that don't have a built in propane heater. So we've
heard from other RV friends that buddy heaters are small, compact and portable. So they're
easy to store, easy to pull out if you do find yourself in a spot where you want your
RV to be a little warmer than it is naturally.
One of the things you need to realize is that camping at campgrounds in winter months is
not the same as camping in the summer. For instance, some campgrounds shut off the water
on a designated date every single year. The campground we're at now, water's already off.
So one of the things you'll want to consider when camping in the winter is whether the
campground is going to have the water turned on or turned off. And the best way to find
out because every campground is different is just pick up the phone and call them. If
you know the water's going to be turned off, not a big deal, just make sure you take the
time to fill your fresh tank in advance.
Another thing that's important to note is that not all campgrounds are actually open
year round. A lot of those that are up north or who experience crazy winter weather, they
simply close. So it's really important as you're planning your trips that you think
a little bit more in advance if you're planning on being in places where the weather is going
to get below freezing. Part of that planning is going to be watching the weather, which
is something Daniel does. So I'll let him give you the 411 on that.
To say I've become borderline obsessed with tracking the weather would be an understatement.
After our Texas situation, I am constantly checking the weather as you should too. And
it's not just for winter camping. You definitely want to know if there are some rogue storms
coming through your area, which could include hail, or tornadoes, or all kinds of natural
disasters. But for winter camping specifically, you definitely need to know when cold weather
is on the horizon. So one of the ways I do that is I check using the AccuWeather app.
It's one of my favorites. And while it is very important to check your seven day forecast
to see what's coming, it's just as important to see what's on the horizon. And that includes
checking the national weather map. That way you can see when the storms are about to sweep
through your area, which in a lot of instances, will give you sometimes three to five days
of warning. So if it looks like it's going to be a storm, that's going to be a little
too much for you. You have adequate time to get the heck out of dodge.
Now this is where we're located right here, but I want to see what's in the surrounding
areas. So I'll just zoom out. And in this instance, I can see there's some yucky weather
to the west out here, which if I zoom in a little bit, see some of the bad stuff there.
So that is definitely something I'm going to want to keep my eye on over the next few
days. And another thing I like to keep tabs on is the wind. Because after our experience
in West Texas, dealing with some wind storms. It's so windy out here. It's definitely good
to stay up to date with what's going on. And to do that, I use an app that was recommended
by my truck driving friends called Windy. And I'm going to walk you through it right
now.
So as you can see, this is what my weather forecast looks like throughout the next few
days. And we're located somewhere around here. Everything is clear, but if you're located,
maybe somewhere over here in South Dakota, I want to keep a close eye on that. Look what
happens when I scroll a little bit to the right here, that's some of the nastiness that
you would not want to see. And granted this is by Iceland, but these circulation patterns
can very quickly change and you can find yourself in a sticky situation very quickly. So one
of the things I'll use this app to consider is when I'm going to be leaving, because if
I can tell that it's going to be super windy between, let's just say for instance, the
hours of noon and two o'clock, I'll try to either leave my campground earlier or later
on in the day when it's less windy. It's important to check these things every single day. Now
that might seem over the top, but the weather can change so, so quickly and you want to
be prepared.
After we released our video about getting stuck in the Texas freeze, everyone asked
us a million times over, why didn't we just leave before the weather got bad? Well it's
because we didn't know these tips about the weather apps and that we should be checking
it every day. So seriously, don't let that be you. We really hope you never find yourself
in an emergency winter camping situation like what we did. But if you do, basically know
and understand that you're walking into an extreme boondocking experience. These are
our tips that we would suggest you do not miss that we did so that you get through it
a little bit smoother.
Tip number one. And this is probably one of the first things you want to do, because if
there's some impending weather and it's on the news, everybody knows it and everybody
is going to be scrambling for fuel. So get out there and fill up on all of your fuel,
whether that's gas, diesel, and especially, especially your propane tanks. Top them off.
And for goodness sakes, don't be us. It seems so common sense to do this. But when we looked
at the weather, we saw it was coming, they said it was only going to be a day or two.
We had a half full tank in the truck. We had one full tank of propane and we were like
me, it'll be fine. You know how that turned out? Don't do it. Just get up, go get prepared.
I promise, you'd rather be prepared than not.
Tip number two. If it's going to freeze, make sure you undo your lock so that you can access
everything you need to. This is a great example. Our truck bed cover has a locking system in
place. So the problem with that is that when this thing was covered with ice, I couldn't
get the dang key in here. It was frozen shut. So that's number two. If you've got some outdoor
locks and you think there's some potential for the locks to completely freeze over, make
sure they're unlocked in advance or that you have your essential items already taken out
of your locked locations.
I'm sure you can imagine because we experienced the Texas freeze and put it on YouTube, we
heard a lot from other RVers who have run into serious winter camping emergencies. And
one of the things that we heard about is our propane oven and stove were a huge plus because
any of the ways that we normally cook inside worked just fine because we had propane. If
you do not have a propane stove or oven, make sure when you're stocking up on food that
you think about that in advance for what you're getting so you can still use whatever supplies
you have.
But speaking of propane, winter camping is all about staying warm and that leads us to
the undercarriage of your Airstream or RV. In normal weather conditions, you probably
don't spend much time thinking about the undercarriage of your RV, but when it's cold, it needs to
become a top priority because the wind and cold that will get underneath there will make
it significantly more difficult to keep your RV warm. So pretty much anything that you
can do to block the wind from under your RV is a good idea. We didn't do this in the Texas
freeze. We know now that you can easily have RV skirts, but you can also makeshift this
kind of thing. If you can find hay bales, if you have a lot of snow and can stack it
up and make a little wall around the undercarriage of your RV. Anything will work as long you
insulate underneath there.
And I'm just going to add one more note to that. The floor of your RV will be so cold.
You'll be wearing like two or three or four layers of socks, just to be able to walk around
the interior of your RV because the floor gets so cold.
There you have it, all the lessons that we didn't want to learn about winter camping
as RV newbies.
Unfortunately, a lot of these lessons we learned the hard way. The advantage to us learning
it the hard way is that by watching this video, you can learn from our mistakes and avoid
those same situations.
But this is not an exhaustive list of all the things that you need to know about winter
camping. I mean, even though we went through the Texas freeze, we still are no experts.
So if you have a favorite winter camping tip that newbies need to know, make sure you leave
a comment below. Because true story, comments have made all the difference in our learning
journey from RV newbies too, I don't know, semi somewhat competent RVers.
I think we've tiered up like a couple of notches. I wouldn't say we're RV experts, but we're
working on it. We're getting there.
We hope you have an amazing winter camping season. And while you do it, make sure to
wander local because as you know, it's good for the soul.