Originally published on October 11, 2018

It’s crazy to think that when we first hit the road back in 2015, we only had a 4GB cell data plan (2 of which were bonus GBs and we were sharing the plan with a friend). But since we didn’t have work that required us to be online, we chose to save money and did the best we could with that scant amount of data. The cell data landscape also looked a lot different 3 years ago (it was more complicated to get unlimited plans and large data plans were expensive!).

In reality, it meant we spent a lot of time searching for free Wi-Fi at grocery stores, libraries, coffee shops, friend’s houses - really wherever we could possibly find it. It was stressful. Since we mainly stayed farther out in the woods, we wouldn’t go into town but once a week to restock supplies. Town days were busy on their own, but toss in a week’s worth of online to-dos and it meant we were driving all over town to run errands and then stuck inside a library for hours while the dogs were bored out of their minds waiting for us. We all started to dread town days. 

Over time we slowly increased our data plan, first to 8 GB of paid data with 4 GB of bonus data (September 2016). A year later, Verizon changed their plans and it was a good deal for us to once again increase our data - to 16 GB paid with 4 GB bonus data. And that was the plan we had until May 2018.

Having 20 GB of data was a big game changer. It was a lot of data, especially since we didn’t stream music, movies, or TV shows. We rarely had to go out searching for Wi-Fi after that plan change. But then it happened…we needed internet for work.

So Jerud started data shopping again.

Without going into all the details of what we were looking for and why certain options weren’t going to work, the gist is that we were looking for a plan in addition to our current 20 GB Verizon plan that was just a straight data connection (a mobile hot spot). Jerud contacted all the main carriers and found out that none of their larger sized data plans were viable. I’m keeping the downsides to these data plans short because they’re ever-changing.

Verizon

Our current phone plan is with Verizon. The next plan up from ours is Verizon’s “unlimited”. It’s not actually unlimited and it was too expensive.

AT&T

Their “unlimited” plan was also expensive and their device options for hot spots were lacking.

T-Mobile & Sprint

Neither of the two carriers have adequate coverage. Yes, they’re supposed to merge into one, but that’s not happening for another year – if it actually goes through. We needed a bigger data plan now.

Carriers all make data-only plans less attractive than phone data plans, for example: Verizon’s “unlimited” plan is 22 GB (after 22 GB your data gets deprioritized), while for a data-only plan that “unlimited” is only 15 GB – this is true even if you’re tethering to a phone.

Also, in our opinion, the old school method of purchasing a grandfathered-in, truly unlimited plan from someone else is no longer a viable option. Cell companies are starting to crack down on those plans more and more, and on top of that, the plans have to be handled delicately when it comes to making any changes. If a cell company rep does anything wrong, the whole plan could be cancelled. We just don’t have the energy to pay attention to those kind of details.

Previous Data Plans We Had

In 2018, we signed up with Unlimited To Go for their unlimited AT&T data-only plan. The plan was $100/month at the time. We paid month-to-month and could turn our plan on/off whenever we want – but it involved getting a new SIM card from Unlimited To Go each time.

In 2019, we switched to OTR Mobile because their unlimited AT&T data-only plan was only $60/month. Similar to Unlimited To Go, we could also turn our plan on/off whenever we want, but it meant getting a new SIM card each time and paying $20 for it.

But in May 2020, OTR Mobile stopped offering their AT&T unlimited plan. OTR Mobile plans evidently use TMobile/Sprint now. So, we switched to AT&T’s pre-paid data plan.

AT&T Pre-Paid Data Plan

Since our phones are with Verizon (best coverage), going with AT&T (has the second best coverage for us) meant we’d have more redundancy coverage-wise. It also means that if we go somewhere that doesn’t have Verizon coverage there’s a chance it’ll have AT&T coverage and vice versa (our decision has paid off multiple times since May 2018).

We settled on AT&T’s pre-paid data plan. It’s a new plan that just came out around the beginning of 2021 (we signed up at the end of February). (Update: As of April 26, 2021, we already regret this, see below for why.)

This pre-paid data plan is made exclusively for tablets and mobile hotspot usage, and it doesn’t get throttled or deprioritized – but it’s not unlimited – you get a fixed bucket of data. AT&T offers the plan in four sizes (note, these offerings have already changed):

• 15GB for $35/month

• 20GB for $25/month

  • That’s not a typo: It’s really cheaper than the 15GB plan. But, you have to pay for the entire year in advance ($300). AT&T doesn’t give you the option to pay month-to-month. This is the only plan out of the four that requires you to pay for the entire year in advance. This is the plan we’re currently using. We’re not actually sure what happens when the year is up. One rep told made it sound like the plan would switch to month-to-month payments, however, another rep said that if we renewed it would be in another 12-month chunk.

• 25 GB for $50//month

• 40 GB for $75/month

Looking at their different data plans and their prices, it seems like AT&T is purposely driving people to purchase the 20GB plan – because the math just doesn’t make sense for the other ones. You end up paying more money for less data.

Unlike some data plans I came across, this one doesn’t require you to have an AT&T-specific router to be able to use it. I gave the AT&T salesperson our router’s IMEI to make sure the SIM card and plan would work, but I also brought the actual router to double-check if necessary. The plan ended up costing $300 for the year, $15 activation fee, and taxes.

Despite what a store salesperson tells you, you have to go into an AT&T store to sign up for this plan. It clearly states it on the website. Aside from signing up and getting the SIM card, the salespeople in the store weren’t very helpful. They actually knew less about the plan than I did.

Things we learned after using the 20GB AT&T data plan the first month:

• The SIM card is assigned its own phone number. The store salesperson didn’t provide me this number, but it was on the receipt. This phone number is needed to create your online AT&T “pay as you go” or paygo account (it’s a different site from AT&T’s regular plans). This site is the only place you can pay, add data, or check your usage.

• You need to also have a pin number to create a login password for the paygo site, or to make any changes to your account. The store salesperson didn’t tell me about this, and can’t access it  either. This pin can only be received via the SIM. If your router/hotspot has a screen on it, this is easy. You just request the PIN from the paygo site by selecting “forgot password”, then “reset pin” and it shows up on your device. You then have the option of changing it to whatever you like. But if your router doesn’t have a screen (like ours), there are two less-easy options:

  • 1) Put the data SIM card into your phone (or any other device with a screen) temporarily. After the card is in the phone, request the PIN and it will show up on the temporary device. Then you can create your account and put the SIM back into your router.

  • 2) Your router still receives the PIN code even if it doesn’t have a screen – it just can’t display it. So if you’re comfortable with your router’s settings and configurations, you can view the logs and see the SMS message containing your PIN. This is going to be different for every router, so we can’t help you with specifics

• AT&T’s app for paygo accounts sucks; it just redirects you to the AT&T website. So we deleted it and bookmarked the website instead: www.paygoline.com/websc/home.html.

• Apparently, the data plan is on a 30-day rotation rather than a monthly one. Meaning our plan didn’t reset on March 26 as we expected since we signed up for it on February 26. Instead, the plan resets every 30 days, which means our data will reset on a different day every other month! This is going to be annoying as heck, but beggars can’t be choosers. Apparently this is normal for prepaid plans, but we’ve never had one before.

• You can add data whenever you’d like. It costs $10 to add 5GB. That’s the only increment available, but I don’t believe there’s a limit to how many times you can add to your plan each month. 

We quickly discovered how much we missed our previous unlimited plan because we went through our 20GB of VZ cell data and the 20GB AT&T data before the month was up. So, we ended up signing up for a second 20GB data plan. Our router can be configured to “fail over” from one SIM to the other, letting us effectively combine the two pools of data seamlessly. Combined with the first AT&T plan and the data on our Verizon plan, that gives us 60 GB of data/month, which seems to be enough (so far). We’re still looking for ways to reduce our consumption.

Why we regret getting the AT&T 12-month prepaid plan

What they DON’T tell you is that once you prepay, your money is gone. No refunds, credits, or reimbursements. This is probably due to the AT&T retail store staff not really knowing or caring about the prepaid plans, which seem to be almost a whole separate business entity from the postpaid products. If you change plans, you forfeit what you’ve already paid, which sucks if you’ve prepaid for a month, but REALLY sucks if you prepaid for a year. Folks used to prepaid cell services are likely not surprised by this — but this was our first time using a non-postpaid plan, and the general runaround we got from AT&T throughout the process led us right into this trap. There is plenty of confusion, miscommunication, and sloppiness any time you deal with AT&T and in this case we got screwed because not even 2 months after making the $300/year plan available, AT&T now has 100GB for $55/month, and you don’t even have to prepay for a year. We can’t switch to that plan though, because we’d be throwing away the money from the 20GB plan since AT&T won’t give us a credit for it.

We only found out about the 100GB plan thanks to Josh’s comment below. The other messed up thing about AT&T is that they had advertised the plan as $50/month, but when we called AT&T they said it’s actually $55 and wouldn’t honor the price on the website.

Normally prepaying for services gets you a better deal, but this is one place where it is NOT the right move. Maybe other providers are different, but AT&T’s offerings are too volatile to risk locking yourself in to 12 months. We strongly suggest steering well clear of any 12-month prepay for AT&T services. We certainly wish we had.

Why We Chose Cellular Router Over Hot Spot

To keep this section short and simple, the main reason we got a cellular router over a hot spot was that it offered the best reception at the best price. A cellular router offered better signal than a hot spot, without having to purchase any additional accessories - and at a cost $100 more. On top of that, cellular routers are made to be left on; hot spots tend to overheat and fail when used 24/7.

MOFI4500 ROUTER

The cellular router we chose to purchase from Unlimited To Go was the MOFI4500 Router. Here are the three main reasons why we chose MOFI:

• MOFI was offered by Unlimited To Go which means we wouldn’t have to pay the one-time $20 BYO device surcharge.

• MOFI is easy to power off 12V. Even though it doesn’t come with a cigarette lighter charger, it’s easy to find one that will work with it.

• MOFI has two antenna ports for MIMO (this is a type of antenna configuration used with LTE technology to help pick up weak signal).

We got MOFI in May and used it until the end of September – when the SIM card slot broke and could no longer hold the card in place. We got the warranty replacement but decided to sell the new replacement MOFI.

This incident spurred Jerud to get back on the web to research alternative cell routers. We decided to totally replace MOFI after only 4 months because:

• The MOFI had to be rebooted frequently to find new towers and make new connections.

• SIM card broke slot broke after only 4 months, which it really shouldn’t have (we don’t ever remove the card).

• The angle of the antenna ports on MOFI meant that the two coax cables from the antenna connect from opposite directions. This made it difficult to prevent the cables from kinking. It also made it harder to figure out where to place the router in the rig.

• The router’s admin interface was difficult to use.

• There isn’t a manual on how to use the software when you log into the router.

Cradlepoint IBR600B ROUTER

We replaced the MOFI with Cradlepoint and been using that since. There were a few different Cradlepoint models to choose from, but we decided to get the IBR600B router because:

• It has two SIM slots. While we only have one SIM card, this router is able to use two SIM cards if we ever decide to get an additional one.

• The Cradlepoint IBR600B has the “fail over” ability, which the MOFI didn’t. “Fail over” means that if the data on one SIM card is used up or that card’s cell carrier has bad signal, the router will seamlessly use the other SIM card to connect.

• This router also allows users to switch between two SIM cards (and other sources of internet such as Wi-Fi and LAN) on the fly without having to make any physical hardware changes.

• This model has only one cell modem which helps keep it in our price point. Having more than one modem is overkill for our application.

• Cradlepoint cell routers are considered an “enterprise-grade solution”; they’re designed for businesses and are a tougher piece of electronics than the MOFI. Cradlepoint routers are meant to be installed in vehicles and used heavily. We realized after purchasing MOFI that we like to bring it with us in the truck when we’re scouting boondock sites to see whether either Verizon signal (from our cell phones) or AT&T signal (from our cell router) are available, so having a robust device is important due to all that handling. Technically, the MOFI4500 router is also considered “enterprise-grade”, but didn’t seem to be as durable as Cradlepoint.

• The orientation of the antenna ports are on the same side of the router, making it a lot more convenient to use with an antenna.

• The admin interface is better than MOFI. It provides users more information and more control over how it works.

• There is an available 12V vehicle adapter that we purchased separately for $22.49.

The only downside is that it isn’t offered through Unlimited To Go. So, if that’s what we had gotten first, we would’ve had to pay the BYO device surcharge. And the Cradlepoint is ~$100 more expensive than MOFI.

Update: As of January 2020 we learned there is another downside to choosing Cradlepoint. When we bought the router, it came with a (required) 1-year service plan. While the customer/technical support this plan provided was truly exceptional, we decided to not renew it, since our setup is quite simple and requires little support now that it’s running. However, we recently learned that Cradlepoint is moving towards a mandatory-subscription model with all new firmware versions, and probably by the end of the year there will be no ‘current’ firmware that does not require being paired with a service plan. So we’re basically locked-in to the version of firmware we have now, unless we re-subscribe. While the plan is not very expensive — and is definitely worth its price — this does make the Cradlepoint somewhat less attractive for tight budgets.

Proxicast 4G/LTE (MIMO) PANEL Antenna

The plan wasn’t to get an antenna right away. We were going to use the cell router for awhile and wait before spending the additional money for one. But when we arrived in Crested Butte, we found a really sweet secluded boondocking site that barely got any cell signal. We were going to be around for a couple of weeks, so we decided to bite the bullet.  

We chose the Proxicast 4G/LTE (MIMO) panel antenna for these reasons:

• Wanted a MIMO antenna because it’s especially useful for being able to get a weak LTE signal.

• Wanted a directional antenna because even though it takes more time to aim, you can pull signals from farther away than an omnidirectional antenna. Since once we’re boondocked, we stay for at least a week, it’s worth spending the time to aim it.

• Yagi is another style of directional antenna that we could’ve gotten, but to be able to use it for a MIMO connection meant getting two individual Yagis (because each Yagi is only one antenna). This would’ve made the whole setup bulkier and pricier. But it probably would’ve been more powerful. The Proxicast comes with both antennas built into one box.

We purchased and started using the Proxicast antenna at the end of June and so far we don’t have any complaints about it. It works great and we’ve definitely been able to stay at a handful of sites because it got cell signal that our cell router wasn’t able to.

The antenna is designed to be clamped onto a pole. Most people install antennas to sit permanently on the roof of their rig. We didn’t – initially because we didn’t know where would be a good spot on the roof to install it and we wanted to use it for awhile first. But almost 1.5 years later, we still don’t have it permanently installed and don’t see the need to because we don’t always need to use it.

Jerud salvaged the pole from an old pool cleaning net a while back. The antenna is attached to the pool pole and using hose clamps he attached suction cups to the pole. The antenna sits 15 feet above the Toaster by suctioning the pole to the side of our slide. The slide is the best spot for us to attach the pole/antenna setup because it doesn’t create any shadows on our solar panels. The coax cable is routed underneath our rig to the cell router sits inside a cabinet.

The antenna is waterproof, so it can remain outside in all weather conditions. But the suction cups came off the slide once, causing the whole thing to fall on the ground and crack the antenna housing. We weren’t able to buy a replacement part to fix it, so caulking it was the solution to make it waterproof again. Now when we use the antenna we tie the pool pole to the solar panel rail with a ski strap to keep it from falling off.

Costs of Products

AT&T Prepaid Data Plan: $315 including activation fee for the 20GB data plan (started with Unlimited To Go: $99/month, then switched to OTR Mobile: $60/month)

MOFI4500 router: $300

Cradlepoint IBR600B router: $439 for device ($22.39 for vehicle adapter)

5 inch aluminum suction cup: $13.99 x 2

25 ft. coax extension cable: $43.95 x 2

Proxicast 4G/LTE (MIMO) panel antenna : $99.95

Hose clamps: a couple bucks

Having a cell router and antenna has been a game-changer! It’s allowed us to boondock in places that we would’ve otherwise not been able to because we couldn’t get any signal with our cell phones. Yes, we’ve spent a lot more money than we like on setting up our mobile internet network, but it’s been worth every penny.

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Those of you who have a composting toilet, you already know how gross the pee bottle can get. For those who aren’t fortunate enough to know first-hand, let me get you acquainted.

When you peek inside a used pee bottle, you’ll notice the interior walls are covered in a yellowish-brown scale. Almost like a ring around a tub, but instead of soap scum and dead skin, it’s from dried pee and the minerals in our urine. The dried pee eventually flakes off and gets poured out when the bottle is emptied, resembling gigantic flakes of fish food. The build-up is from pee sloshing while driving and then drying on the walls.

This makes the pee bottle gross, smelly, and difficult to see how full the bottle is.

The two main composting toilet companies both recommend cleaning the bottle out with mixture of vinegar and water. We’ve filled our pee bottle with vinegar and (hot) water, swooshed it around, let it soak and then poured it out. It wasn’t effective for us.

We’ve also added rocks to that mixture, shook and poured. No change. We’ve left the rocks in the bottle and driven 50+ miles, hoping that’ll clean the sides. Nope.

We’d kind of given up hope on ever having a clean pee bottle again, until we were in Vernal, UT. There was a plumbing and janitorial store in town that we drove by. Jerud decided to go in to see if they might have any recommendations. They recommended a product by Hy-Ko called Porcelain Brite. We tried it out and were pleasantly surprised that it worked!

Porcelain Brite isn’t a composting-toilet-specific product. The back of the bottle says it’s made to remove soap scum, water deposits, scales and other deposits from toilet bowls, urinals, shower walls, etc. Directions say to add 1 part Porcelain Brite to 5 parts water. Apply with a brush or cloth (obviously, we didn’t do that and just poured the mixture into our pee bottle). Let it sit for one minute and then rinse with water.

We filled about half of our pee bottle with the mixture, let it sit for a minute or three, shook it around, let it sit again, and then poured it out. The mixture does foam up a lot, so don’t fill your entire pee bottle with it! While not all of the scaling came off the walls, a very good amount it did.

The back of the bottle doesn’t list the ingredients, but Hy-Ko’s website said, “A 28% phosphoric Acid, detergent and emulsifiers unite to quickly remove water minerals, scale, rust, soap scum and filth from toilet bowl, skins, glass, urinals and showers.” I haven’t been able to find any other information about this product, so I don’t know how environmentally friendly this is. But I don’t recommend dumping this out in the woods just to be safe and respectful. Please empty it in a toilet or at an RV dump station.

I haven’t looked for this product again since Vernal, so I don’t know how easy it is to find it. There are two places you can buy it online when I did a quick search: this one and this one. Neither are Amazon.

Let me know if you’ve come across anything else that’s effective in cleaning out a composting toilet pee bottle!

THANK YOU FOR MAKING YOUR AMAZON PURCHASES THROUGH OUR AFFILIATE LINK.

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As mentioned in the previous post, Why We Whose The Winnerwell Portable Tiny Wood Stove, the biggest obstacle we had with using a wood stove in the rig was figuring out where and how to install it. The Toaster’s layout doesn’t have any spots where a stove can sit, and we couldn’t run a chimney through the solar panels.

But the Winnerwell tiny wood stove gave us installation options because of its portability. We decided the spot that made the most sense for it is our dinette.

When it’s time to pull the wood stove out of storage, we convert our dinette into “bed mode” without the cushions, set the stove there, and vent it out the window. It’s the most straightforward option for us and doesn’t require cutting into our walls or roof. It does take away our eating space and my workspace. But it’s worth it to stay warm and to stay in cold places we otherwise wouldn’t have.

Installing Our Winnerwell Nomad Wood Stove

When our Winnerwell Nomad wood stove is stored away, the dinette goes back to its original configuration. But setting up the stove requires a multi-step conversion so it can safely be used.

Any wood stove needs to be 18 inches away from any combustible surfaces. But if you put a heat shield in between, one inch away from the combustible surface, you can reduce that to 6 inches. You may notice in my photos that our stove actually sits more than 6 inches away from the wall/window. There just wasn’t any reason to put the stove closer to the wall because the dinette couldn’t be used for anything else anyway.

Tiny Wood Stove wrote a great article on “How To Build Heat Shield for Wood Stoves”. Please read it before starting your own project.

Here’s everything we have to setup and use the Winnerwell wood stove:

• First column (left to right): All the flue sections, CO monitor, wood stove thermometer (this one goes on the stove itself rather than the flue because the stove is stainless and magnets won’t work), gasket, cable wire, and turnbuckles.

• Second column: Winnerwell Nomad medium-size stove, double wall pipe, ash scraper, and window insert.

• Third column: Bottom heat shield and rug we used to cover the dinette seat.

• Fourth column: Window heat shield.

• Not pictured is the pipe brush.

Window Insert For The Flue

We didn’t want to cut a hole in the walls or roof of the Toaster, since we’d then have to figure out how to cover it up when the stove wasn’t installed. So we ran the flue out a window, and make an insert to keep the cold air and weather out.  

To use the window insert, we open our dinette window and remove the screen, leaving a large hole. We set the window insert into the hole and stuff a gasket around it to seal the gap with the window frame.

• The window insert is made out of plywood that’s cut to the shape and size of our dinette window.

• A hole is cut out of the insert where the double-wall pipe exits out the window.

• The flue exits at a 45-degree angle. Since the flashing kit (aka boot) can’t accept the flue at that steep of an angle, Jerud added a triangular box to the insert so the flue passes straight through the boot.

• Side note: the purpose of the boot is to 1) hold the double-wall pipe in place and 2) to seal the opening where the flue exits the insert.

• The insert is sanded, painted, and sprayed with polyurethane coating.

• The boot is screwed onto the window insert.

• You may notice in photos that there’s a seam on the right side of the window insert. That’s because there’s actually another piece of wood there. The window insert is clamped to the window frame on the left , top and bottom edges. Since there’s isn’t a window frame on the right edge of the insert to clamp it down, that extra piece of wood clamps to the other window pane.

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Window Heat Shield 

After the window insert is set in place, the heat shield attaches to it with long carriage bolts.  The 1-inch spacing that’s needed between the heat shield and window is created by spacers made from aluminum pipe slipped over the bolts. The bottom edge of the heat shield isn’t screwed into anything, it just hangs. To protect the interior wall from being scratched by that edge of the shield, we slip in some more aluminum spacers with felt pads.

• We had the heat shield fabricated by an HVAC shop in Vegas from 20-gauge galvanized steel.

• We chose that material for a few reasons: 1) It’s what the company had on hand and was familiar with 2) The shield would’ve been too floppy if it was made from a thinner material, making it a hassle to store. 3) Stainless would have looked nicer but costs a whole lot more!

• The shop cut a large oblong opening for the double-wall flue section to pass through (at an angle), and four small square holes for the heads of the carriage bolts.

• The most difficult part was figuring out the correct size and position of the hole for the flue to go through. We made a cardboard mockup of the heat shield and set the stove in place, then marked the flue position on the cardboard, to find the right location.

• We also asked the company to bend a flange around edges of the shield. This was made the shield stiffer, and hid the raw edges so it would look cleaner and not catch on things. The flanges also hold the bottom heat shield in place when it’s nested inside for storage in our rig’s basement.

Bottom Heat Shield 

The underside of the stove doesn’t have the same spacing requirement as the top and sides. The stove needs to be set on a noncombustible surface but doesn’t need a heath shield with an air gap behind it.

• We purchased a small sheet of 22-gauge galvanized steel, because it was readily available and inexpensive at a hardware shop.

• The same company who made the window heat shield cut the 22-gauge steel sheet for us. While we have metal snips and could’ve cut it ourselves, having a nice, clean and straight edge was preferred. This was faster and cheaper than having them provide the material, because they would have had to cut it out of a much larger sheet. Honestly, this sheet is a little too thin. It does the job, but the stove’s feet make indentations in it, so it doesn’t look the best.

Flue Set Up 

The Winnerwell stove comes with 5 sections of 14” long, 2.5” diameter straight chimney pipe, a section with a damper, and a spark arrestor for the top. This meant we only needed to purchase two 45-degree pipe sections and the double-wall pipe for our setup. To save money, we didn’t buy the boot Springbar sells because we found a cheaper (and more flimsy) one on Amazon. (We actually also had to buy a CO monitor since we’re all solar and don’t already have one.) 

If the flue went straight up, wind wouldn’t be a problem, but because we added 45 degree sections, it can actually be blown over because the 45 acts like a hinge.

• To stabilize the flue, we used a small diameter metal cable to attach it to the window insert.

• The spark arrestor already has eyelet hooks, so we added two eyelet hooks to the top corners of the window insert.

• Loops were formed on both ends of the metal cable.

• Then carabiners and turnbuckles are used to attach and tighten the cable.

Jerud did a great job with the design! He managed it keep it as simple as possible so it stores easily in our basement when not in use. The stove fits in its shipping box, the heat shield and insert lay on top of it, and we stash the double-wall section under a dinette seat. It takes about an hour to pull everything out and set it up, which isn’t too bad, but it’s enough trouble that we wouldn’t bother for just a night or two.

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We built the Toaster to use electricity for space heating, using built-in floor heaters and plug-in space heaters. But even with clear desert skies the sun stays too low and sets too soon for us to run those heaters off solar power in the winter.

This past November we finally decided it was time to find an alternative source of heat compatible with our goal of being fossil fuel free (no propane, gas, or diesel). The (only) option was a wood stove. I’ve wanted one since we first started rebuilding the rig, but forvarious reasons we (ahem, Jerud) decided against installing one in the Toaster. It’s something we both regret because now we’re locked into a layout with no good place to install a permanent stove.

Then last winter, fed up with the cold, we started searching again and Jerud found Winnerwell. It’s a wood stove specifically made to be portable. It’s actually meant to be used in shelters like canvas tents, teepees, and yurts -- “recreational shelters and general outdoor use.” While the website states that it can also be used in tiny homes and vans, Winnerwell isn’t as popular for those uses as other brands such as Tiny Wood Stove and Cubic Mini Wood Stoves. 

Reasons We Chose The Winnerwell Wood Stove

But their Nomad model stove was a really attractive option for us because it’s:

• Portable: Since we don’t have a space we can dedicate to a wood stove year-round, we need something that can easily be put away when we’re traveling, during warmer months, and doesn’t take up a lot of space when stored.

• Affordable: The Winnerwell Nomad stove is $200+ less than then the next cheapest wood stove of a similar size. And unlike most other wood stove companies, the price includes the flue (although we did have to buy some additional parts to work with our setup).

• Lightweight: The Nomad stove also weighs a lot less than most other wood stoves because it’s meant to be portable, so is made of thin 304 stainless steel. The medium size we bought (15” x 7.9” x 8.3”) weighs 20.9 lbs – including the flue – compared to the Cubic Mini Wood Stove CB-1008 CUB (11” x 12” x 10.5) which is 25 lbs or the Tiny Wood Stove 3kw Lite (17” x 10.25” x 8.5”) which is 55 lbs (stove only).           

Additional perks of the Winnerwell stove:

•  It’s a good-looking stove, sleek and modern.

• It’s well designed, with collapsible legs and folding shelves that double as carrying handles.

• The stove is a lot deeper than other tiny wood stoves. This means we don’t have to cut all our wood into tiny pieces. We also think the larger firebox means we can load more wood, so we don’t have to feed it as frequently as other stoves. (We don’t know if this is true for sure, since we’ve never used another tiny wood stove, and it still needs feeding pretty often.)

• We’re hopeful that we can also use it in the shuttle – where we have a lot less space than the Toaster.

Based on all that, we decided it was worth giving the Winnerwell stove a try, even though there wasn’t much information about other nomads using it. We got the Nomad stove in a medium size because the seller, Springbar, said it would be sufficient to heat up our 200 sq. ft space.

It arrived in late November 2019 and our first impressions of the stove were very positive. The company recommends doing a test burn outside before using it inside for two reasons:

1. To figure out and practice how to use the stove.

2. To burn off the residues from manufacturing so it doesn’t make the living space smell.

This was the test burn we did after getting the stove.

The Good & The Bad

Here are our thoughts after using the stove on and off over the course of a few months:

The Good:

• We’re really happy with it overall. It’s pretty much what we expected. It’s well-made and actually looks as good in person as it does in photos. The “patina” described on the website really does enhance its look.The stove really doesn’t weigh much at all! It’s made of 1/16” thick 304 stainless steel for the body and 1/8” thick for the cooktop. While other stoves are made of steel, cast iron, or vermiculite brick.

• The flue sections that come with the stove can actually be stored inside the firebox, minimizing the space it takes to store in our basement.

• The cooktop is a wide enough to cook on with a pot or cast iron pan.

This isn’t really good or bad, but since the stove doesn’t use a secondary combustion (which unfortunately make it less eco-friendly) the flue has to be cleaned out more frequently than stoves that do have it. Since it’s portable, by the time we’re storing the stove away is probably time for the flue to be cleaned out anyways.

The Bad:

• The stove isn’t airtight – we think so that the thinner material doesn’t warp from the heat. if it’s super windy outside, it will cause a backdraft and smoke will blow out of the seams, cooktop lid, and stove door. This requires keeping the stove at “max” so it draws hard enough to fight the wind, but this can make it really hot inside! I have no idea if other tiny wood stoves have this problem.

• I wish the stove didn’t have a lid on the cooktop. I know the purpose of the lid is that it can be removed if more heat is needed to cook. But I really wish they offered a model that doesn’t have the lid at all. All it does is let smoke seep through whenever it gets overly smoky inside the stove.

• The three issues above have made the inside of the Toaster insanely smoky at times. There’s definitely been a learning curve to using the stove: how much the flue should be opened when adding new wood, where’s the best spot inside the stove to put the wood, and the best temperature to keep the stove at. We added an aftermarket wood stove thermometer which helped tremendously in managing the stove.

• Sometimes, water will drip down the inside of the flue and out of the backend of the stove when it’s raining outside, when the stove is off.

• The medium size stove is just an inch shorter than standard 16” split wood! This means we still have to saw down much of the wood we buy. Sometimes it’s short enough, and sometimes we can put longer pieces in diagonally. But Jerud wishes we had gotten the large size stove because it’s a few inches longer inside.

• The glass in the door is a really nice. But it’s always sooty because the stove doesn’t have an air wash. The trick to keep the window clean is to keep the wood near the back of the stove.

• The Winnerwell stove is really only meant to burn seasoned wood whereas other stoves are more flexible in the fuels they can use. This hasn’t been an issue for us yet, but finding quality, sustainable, dry wood isn’t always easy.

Cost Of The Winnerwell Nomad Wood Stove & Parts

Not including materials we needed to install the wood stove in our rig, we spent:

• Winnerwell Nomad medium-size stove (flue included): $349.00

• Two 45-degree flue pipe sections: $39.90 (for both)

• Double wall pipe section: $59.95

• Flue cleaning brush: $19.95

• Totaling: $468.80 (tax not included)

We’ve stored the stove away since the weather has warmed up, but we definitely look forward to using it again once winter’s back! It’s let us comfortably stay in several places we might’ve not stuck around when the weather got bad. It’s so nice to have a toasty living space, a place to dry wet clothes, and an alternative heating water/cooking option for those long, dreary winter spells with very little solar power.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING YOUR AMAZON PURCHASES THROUGH OUR AFFILIATE LINK.

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Living on the road and constantly traveling to unfamiliar places towing an 8,000 lb rig can be stressful. There are a lot of unknowns and we can end up spending a lot of time and cell data trying to figure out all kinds of things. We know it’s probably like that for all travelers - whether you’re full-timers or not. Here’s a list of apps that have made our life on the road easier. This post breaks the apps down into categories: travel planning, boondocking, while enroute, recreation, photography, data, and resources.

A few notes about this list: All apps listed here are for iOS, but nearly all of them are available for Android. They’re all free except for a few which are marked. The apps we use the most often are marked with an *. Sometimes we have more than one app to do one job and that’s because even the best apps have some shortcomings.

Travel Planning

*Google Maps

I know this one is a no-brainer, but two things I want to mention about using Google Maps for roadlife: 1) Jerud and I have argued about which map app is better: Google or Apple. Google won because its turn-by-turn navigating is better, for example: which lane to take when exiting the interstate or at an upcoming stoplight. This is extremely useful information when towing. It also lets you more easily see what the next driving steps are. But Google maps isn’t always perfect: it once tried to send us on an hours-long detour due to an “accident” which didn't even exist and sometimes gives us directions that aren’t great for towing. We’ll double check the route we’re given when we’re in more rurual areas just to be sure it’s going to be OK for us to drive on.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

OpenSignal

We don’t use this app very often nowadays because most places we go have cell signal. But we do turn to it if we need to know if a place has cell signal. OpenSignal shows location of cell towers and (estimated) coverage on a map. This can be helpful when trying to choose a boondocking site if you don’t have any intel on whether signal is good there or not. It can also tell you which direction to go if you’re seeking better signal than what you have. OpenSignal runs on user submitted information. The app only shows you cell signal for your cell provider and it doesn’t work offline.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

Coverage

Coverage also provides information about cell coverage, but it works differently from OpenSignal. This app provides a map with overlays of all four major carriers’ coverage maps. Since it uses shading to show cell coverage, it’s not very accurate if you’re looking at a location on the edge of the shading. Maps can be accessed even when you don’t have cell signal. The free version only lets you see one cell carrier’s coverage, while the paid version provides access to all four companies.

• Free and $ version

• Available for iOS and Android

InRoute

InRoute is most useful when we are running a bunch of errands on a town day in an unfamiliar place. We can enter the places we want to drive to and let InRoute decide the best order to visit them. Or we can decide the order and InRoute will find the best route.

• Free

• Available on for iOS

Maps.Me

After a lot of driving in Canada without cell signal, Maps.Me has replaced our previous choice (Navmii) as our favorite offline mapping app. Like Navmii, it lets you download large map areas for offline use. Unlike Navmii, all the maps are completely free to download. Maps.Me maps come from the (OpenStreetMap) database, which is stunningly detailed, even shaming Google Maps at times, and especially when it comes to including hiking and biking trails. The interface is clean and efficient to use while Navmii was slow and cartoony.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

Boondocking

*Campendium

Campendium is THE resource we use to find boondocking spots. Not only are boondocking sites listed, but also RV parks, campgrounds, and parking lots. The majority of the sites have reviews from RVers providing useful and often up-to-date details. It makes finding boondock spots so much easier! We also use Campendium to look for RV dumps.

• Free

• Available only for iOS

iOverlander

We occasionally use this app when we can’t find something in Campendium. The review on iOverlander aren’t as detailed as Campendiums and not all sites are good for big rigs since it’s focused on overlanding.

• Free

• Available only for iOS (but their website works great so it’s not too big of a deal)

US Public Lands

US Public Lands was developed by Technomadia, who’ve been RV full-timers for 10+ years. The app overlays the different types of land management areas (national forest, BLM, wilderness, etc.) on an active map so RVers can identify legit boondocking spots. We use this when we want to make sure we’re actually on public lands and sometimes it’s necessary to know which public lands we’re on so we can follow the correct rules.

• $2.99

• Available for iOS and Android

*Sun Surveyor

If you’ve got solar panels on your rig, you’ll use this app pretty much every time you relocate (except when you’re in the desert since there’s nothing around to block the sun). We do! It’ll help you know where the sun will be, and anticipate shadows that may hurt your solar power generation. We first tried it as a convenience item but now rely on it heavily. It’s also got useful features for photography.

• $9.99 (worth it!)

• Available for iOS and Android

Enroute

*Gasbuddy

We use this app all the time to find the cheapest diesel (and gas). Since it’s all user-submission based, the prices are typically up to date. We like to help out and enter gas prices when we see that they need updating. We’ve used GasBuddy as far north as Yukon, Canada. Although gas stations – and price updates – are much fewer and further between way up there, a little planning can save a LOT of money.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android
  
  
  

Love’s Connect and Pilot Flying J

The Love’s Connect and Pilot Flying J apps (two separate apps) were useful when we first hit the road. We used it when we needed to stay overnight at a truck stop. But we haven’t used it in years. I still included it on this because it can come in handy to travelers who need a place to shower since both gas stations offer them. According to their websites, the app allows you to reserve a shower in advance.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

USA Rest Stops

Good when potty breaks are needed for both the 2-legged and 4-legged passengers - and even the vehicles itself!

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

Connectivity

*Speedtest

Knowing cell signal speed is important for work. We use this app to check cell signal and Wi-Fi speeds whenever we’re in a new spot or scouting future boondock sites.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android
  
  

MyVerizon

If you don’t have unlimited cell data, downloading an app for your cell carrier will be useful to ensure you don’t go through your entire monthly allocation in the first couple of weeks. We’ve added this app to iPhone’s widget window so we can quickly pull down the window and monitor our data consumption.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

Wi-Fi Finder + Map and Speedcheck

These are two separate apps that are linked by the developer and work together. They integrate quick network speed test, ability to add new hotspots, and ability to search for hotspots. The hotspot search displays speed test results for each spot, which is very nice. The database is pretty large, but far from perfect. Offline access to a pre-downloaded area is available with payment. We’ve pretty much stopped using these apps since we’ve gotten unlimited cell data.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

Resources

Yelp

This is another one that’s really obvious, but when you’re always in unfamiliar places it’s hard to know where to go for services…or just a good burrito. We all know some restaurants are overpriced, some mechanics are dishonest, and some tourist attractions are hyped-up. Yelp gives you a fighting chance at dodging disappointment.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

Recycle Nation

I’ve yet to find a great app for recycling on the road. Recycle Nation is better than most recycling apps, but far from perfect. It has a clean interface and it provides pretty detailed information for each recycling location (address, phone number, hours of operation, accepted and not accepted items). But the biggest downside is that its database isn’t very comprehensive. It doesn’t seem to have recycling locations for small towns - which is where we spend most of our time.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

Outdoor Recreation

*MTB Project

MTB Project has a good database of bike trails. Since it’s filled with moderated submissions, it’s a pretty clean and reliable app. Trail ratings are adjusted by “consensus”, which we think makes them tend to be rated harder than they really are.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

*Trailforks

Like MTB Project, TrailForks lists mountain bike trails. It seems to have more trails listed than MTB Project - specifically in lesser popular areas. We think the trail difficulty ratings aren’t as reliable as MTB Project because it’s not moderated. It also has more trail information in Canada than MTB Project does.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

Mountain Project

Detailed beta and photos for rock climbing! We’re not avid climbers so we don’t use this enough to have great feedback.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

AllTrails

I’ve started to use this to see what hiking trails are in the areas we’re at. It provides very basic information about the hikes with user feedback (which can be helpful, but it may also mean reading through a ton to compile a complete idea of the hike). The user feedback is great to know what the recent trail condition is like (muddy or still covered in snow or any closures, etc.) But I don’t recommend solely relying on AllTrails because it doesn’t provide complete and/or accurate information! It’s just a good place to start if you’re looking for a list of trails in the area to hike.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

*MotionX-GPS

Motion X-GPS is great for figuring out elevation and GPS coordinates, marking waypoints, compass readings, and recording GPS tracks. There’s a (paid) driving navigation module, but the free version is better for trails than roads. We occasionally use it in place of a handheld GPS when we’re hiking. I use it the most to get GPS coordinates for places we’re at and to track my mileage (whether it’s hiking or cycling). Map tiles can be downloaded ahead of time for offline use, so the app can still be used when there is no cell signal.

• $1.99 for the app

• Available only for iOS

Avenza PDF Maps

Avenza lets you download topo and quadrangle maps for most areas for free. This is good for hiking and biking, and sometimes finding nameless dirt roads to explore. It will show your GPS location on the maps as you’re viewing them.

• Free

• Available for iOS and Android

Fitness

Nike Training Club

This is my go-to workout app. Nike Training offers a variety of workouts: yoga, cardio, plyometric, weights, lean, tone, strength, focus area, etc. Each work out includes a slideshow of the moves and a video. My favorite thing is that I can load the slideshows when I have Wi-Fi to use later and save cell data.

• Free

  1. Available for iOS and Android

Downward Dog

My favorite app for doing yoga. It has a great interface and offers great customization options for sessions (type, level, length, voice, music, etc.). I’ve enjoyed all the yoga sessions I’ve done using the app.

• Free (although I paid for the annual membership this past year)

• Available for iOS and Android

These apps have been working well for us, but there’s always new ones coming out!

THANK YOU FOR MAKING YOUR AMAZON PURCHASES THROUGH OUR AFFILIATE LINK.

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Health insurance is one of the most difficult things we have to deal with living on the road. We’re still on the search for the best health insurance as self-employed full-timers. But this post isn’t about all the health insurance options available; there are a lot of articles on that topic already. This is about my experience using health and accident insurance as a full-timer, for a recent injury that required surgery.

Jerud and I were still residents of North Carolina with ACA health insurance when we hit the road. After ~two years, I changed mine to Liberty HealthShare because my health insurance with North Carolina increased a lot. I left Liberty after a year because their prices also increased, and they don’t cover birth control pills. I then went back to ACA – this time through Nevada’s marketplace since we became residents there in the fall of 2018.

At my income range, the plan options I had were pretty sad. They were all HMOs and the costs started around $120 and went to $200+ a month. Plan deductibles were mainly in the thousands. If there was one that was below $1,000, then the premium was really high. I ended up choosing an HMO from Health Plan of Nevada, and it costs me around $125/month with a deductible of $6,600. HMO plans limit the doctors and medical facilities that my insurance actually covers. The doctors and facilities that are in-network with my insurance company are all in the state of Nevada, and out-of-state coverage is limited to medical emergencies. From my understanding, this is what most of the marketplace options are for most states.

The thought of not having the easiest access to doctors didn’t really faze either of us. Both of us are very healthy. We don’t ever visit the doctor (except for a gynecologist checkup every three years). Neither of us are on any prescription drugs (aside from birth control pills – but I got an IUD this year, which was actually covered by my regular insurance). Yes, we’re active in the outdoors, but we don’t do extreme sports. We figured being mobile meant if we need to see a doctor, it’s because we’re choosing to see a doctor and can drive to Nevada. Despite that working out in previous years, it’s not what happened this year.

Jerud and I spent the winter of 2018/2019 in Teton Valley (Idaho) so we could snowboard and get into backcountry touring. After a little over two months I got hurt while backcountry snowboarding. I ended up completely tearing my Achilles. Luckily, I had already started a supplemental (aka accident) health insurance plan: Accident ExpenseGuard with UnitedHealthcare. Despite having done all my research, never having used this kind of insurance before I wasn’t totally confident they would actually pay out for this accident. From my previous experiences, insurance companies always try their hardest not to pay out. I debated whether or not I should go to Nevada to have my Achilles surgically repaired. But that would’ve been logistically chaotic since the Toaster was stuck in a haybarn covered in snow and there would be months of follow-up visits. Unless this company was a total scam, there wasn’t any reason why they wouldn’t cover my medical expenses. So, I took a chance and got my surgery done in Jackson, WY.

UnitedHealthcare Accident Insurance Plans

UnitedHealthcare has three accident insurance plans: Accident ExpenseGuard, Accident ProGuard, and Accident ProGap. The basic differences between the three of them are:

• Accident ExpenseGuard: Basic accident insurance

• Accident ProGuard: Basic accident insurance plus coverage for critical illness

• Accident ProGap: Covers basic accidents, critical illness, and hospital admission

Accident ExpenseGuard has three level plans:

• $10,000 coverage: as of 2019 it was $39.70 monthly premium

• $15,000 coverage: $46.99 monthly premium

• $20,000 coverage: $52.21 monthly premium

The plan has a $250 deductible. I purchased the $20,000 coverage plan.

The way the plan works is that I submit all my medical claims to them and, if approved, they pay out directly to me. I wasn’t required to visit an emergency or any medical facility prior to using this plan. Trust me, it sounds way easier than it was. Shortly after my accident, I called United Healthcare asking for the exact paperwork I needed to submit with my claims. Despite following their instructions, it wasn’t until almost two months after I sent in my initial batch of claims that I found out I also have to provide them my medical records and chart notes from each medical facility. They notified me of this through the mail – the worst way to communicate for a full-timer!

One of the biggest downsides of the accident insurance plan is that everything has to be submitted via snail mail or fax. The plan doesn’t provide its customers an online account. All communications are done through mail, fax, or sitting on the phone for way longer than I have the patience for. I initially mailed everything through the post office (because who actually has access to a fax machine?). But when I called a month later to follow up on the status of the claims, I found out the claims department somehow only received part of the claims I submitted, despite them all being in the same envelope! The trips to the library to print my records out and going to the post office, only to be moot, started to frustrate me. That’s when I realized the joys of efax!

Submitting Claims

Here is what UnitedHealthcare’s claims department needs:

• Accident Indemnity Claim Form: Call UnitedHealthcare and ask them to provide you the URL for the form for your specific plan

• Superbills: Ask your medical provider to email you a bill with an itemized list of services you used (also known as a superbill). Insurance requires the following information to be included on the bills:

  • Health provider’s name

  • Health provider’s address

  • Federal tax ID

  • Date of service

  • Diagnosis code

  • Procedure code (CPT code)

  • Fee

  • Patient’s name and information

•  Medical records/chart notes: Such as admission notes, consulting notes, and visit results.

I highly recommend sending everything via efax. I used eFax and MetroFax, both of which offer free 1-month trials. Two weeks after you’ve efaxed your claims, I highly recommend calling the claims department to make sure they actually received it and check if there’s anything else they need. Otherwise, you may not find out for a long time – especially if you don’t have easy access to your mail.

Getting Reimbursed

Five months after I submitted my first claim, I received my first check from my supplemental insurance plan. Yeah, that’s a really long wait, but you know what - THEY ACTUALLY PAID OUT!!! The checks were initially mailed out to the mail service we use in Las Vegas. Trying to get them was a hassle, and not to mention pricey because the service we used charged us $5.50 + postage each time we requested a mail out. My friend was kind enough to let me use his PO Box to have the remaining checks sent to and deposited the checks for me (the checks expire after 90 days).

Regular Health Insurance

Although I was very sure my regular insurance with Health Plan of Nevada (HPN) wasn’t going to cover any part of my surgery and post-op care, I provided my insurance information to all my medical providers (except for physical therapy – it’s a lot cheaper to pay out of pocket if you’re pretty sure insurance won’t cover it).

I asked all my medical providers to submit a prior authorization to my insurance before my appointment. In my case, all the prior authorizations were approved by my insurance, but whether or not they would cover the cost of the visit was another story. Each of my medical bills were handled differently. One or two visits were approved and actually entirely covered by HPN after the medical facility submitted the claims on my behalf. Most of the other claims were denied, which I then appealed. 

My medical bills came out to over $15,000. HPN was able to lower my bills by maybe $500. Out of my $6,600 deductible, only $1,946.24 of my bills were applicable. And only $2,446.72 was applied towards my $7,900 out-of-pocket. I would’ve totally been screwed if it wasn’t for accident insurance.

TIPS

•  Keep all your medical bills and records organized.

• Take notes for EVERY phone call including time, date, names of reps, and what they said.

• Have a really good tracking system for:

  • Which claims you’ve submitted

  • The date you submitted your claims

  • Date and name of the insurance agent you spoke to

  • Status and notes of the claims

  • When and the reimbursement amount of each check you receive

• It’s worth appealing any claims that get denied by either insurance company.

• Submit ALL your medical bills to the accident insurance company, even if they say your plan doesn’t cover it or only covers X-amount of visits. I’ve been told one thing, but still had bills reimbursed despite it.

• If the physical therapists you choose isn’t in-network with your health insurance company, it’ll be cheaper to pay for the PT visits out of pocket without using your health insurance. Otherwise, you’ll be responsible for the remainder amount of what your insurance company won’t pay the PT, and that tends to be a lot more expensive than if you just didn’t use health insurance at all.

• My accident insurance plan reimbursed me for my physical therapy visits.

• Be ready to spend hours on the phone with the insurance companies about your claims.

• Most importantly: Remember that you have to be an advocate for yourself because no one else is!

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Easily Accessible

Getting to Convict Lake is a short drive off Hwy 395 on paved roads and supposedly one of the few lakes in the Mammoth Lakes area (California) you can drive to. There’s an RV-friendly campground right next to the lake. Since the trail around Convict Lake is a loop, there are two trailheads: one is right next to the marina (yes, there’s a small marina!) and the other is at the south side of the lake. The directions we found on AllTrails weren’t very clear about getting to the latter, so I’m going to give it a try: From Hwy 395 turn south onto Convict Lake Rd. and drive straight until you’re at a T-intersection with the lake in front of you. Turn left at this intersection and drive clockwise around the lake until the road dead ends into the trailhead parking lot. If you decide to park in any of the spots near the T-intersection mentioned above, there is a handicap-accessible trail which also connects to this south-side trailhead.

Trail Length

The length and ease of the trail was one reason I chose this hike, since I was still recovering from my Achilles surgery. Convict Lake Loop Trail is a fairly flat 2.5-mile hike that stays along the edge of the lake most of the way. But we did come across an unexpected section of the trail. Around the middle of the loop, the trail was washed away by the large amount of snowmelt (the Sierras had a big snow year). The weather had been really warm (high 80s to low 90s) the days before our hike, so the creek was at full-blast. This meant we had to either get our feet wet (not a big deal) or walk across two makeshift “bridges” (also not a big deal). In return, we got to experience the boardwalk section of the hike with snowmelt rushing underneath our feet. That was fantastic.

Part way along the loop is another trail that leaves Inyo National Forest and enters John Muir Wilderness. A wooden sign at this intersection states that Mildred Lake and Lake Dorothy are 5 – 6 miles further up the mountain.

Scenery

People are not misleading when they describe the scenery as dramatic. Convict Lake is encircled by the towering Sherwin Range of the Sierra Nevada. The most eye-catching peak is Laurel Mountain, standing broadly above the lake. To the south are Mt. Morrison, and in front is Mono Jim Peak.

Early morning, the lake was dotted with fishing boats and fishermen lined up along the shores. As the sun rises high above the horizon, the lake becomes a vibrant teal color and day users start showing up.

This hike is worth checking out if you have extra time, but I wouldn’t recommend making plans around it due to its popularity.

Side story 

On September 17, 1871, 29 convicts broke out of a Nevada penitentiary in Carson City. A group of them fled towards Inyo National Forest to seek refuge and eventually ended at this lake. It was here that a shootout occurred, wounding a few of the prisoners and killing two locals. Settlers renamed the lake from its original Paiute name of Wit-sa-nap to Convict Lake after this incident. Mt. Morrison and Mono Jim Peak were named after the two locals who died: Wells Fargo agent Robert Morrison and Indian deputy Mono Jim.

The Story of Inyo talks about this jailbreak in more detail.

Tips

• If you’re not a fan of wet feet or not steady walking across narrow logs posing as bridges, you may want to wear waterproof hiking shoes and/or bring hiking poles when hiking this trail early summer.

• Despite hiking this trail in the middle of the week at 7 AM, we still came across a few people along the way. Start your hike as early as possible to avoid the crowds.

• I’d recommend hiking the loop counterclockwise for scenery purposes. In this direction, you’ll get better views of the peaks surrounding the mountain for a longer portion of the hike.

• It wasn’t clear to us until too late, but the loop trail actually connects to the handicap trail near the shoreline back to the T-intersection mentioned above.

• There’s a water spigot by the bathrooms located near the T-intersection. It’s the thread-less kind that you need to manually hold open.

• Bring your kayak, paddleboard, or canoe if you own one. It’s great to go paddling after the hike.

We visited the lake on June 12, 2019.

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Choosing an RV to become your full-time home is a very personal decision and process. Only you know what kind of lifestyle you want your roadlife to provide. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably like us - eager to live outside the norms of stationary society, and even of the traditional RV community. My goal with this post is to help get you get started with some key questions about road life and lead you to ask yourself specific, tailored questions.

This post isn’t going to talk about the different types of RVs available, what their capabilities are, or breakdown the pros and cons of each type of rig. It also isn’t going to provide advice on how to choose a rig based on your budget. Nor is it going to talk about whether or not you should buy used or new, remodel it yourself, outsource the work, or keep it as-is. The reason I won’t go into any of those topics is that there are a handful of questions you should ask yourself first, before diving into any of that other stuff. If you start by choosing the type of RV you want to buy, your answers to the questions below may be molded to match the rig you’ve already chosen. But, if you answer these questions first, you can find a rig that matches your needs without any biases or attachments.

Before we move on to the questions, the key thing to keep in mind is that your routines and needs in a house aren’t going to end up being your routines and needs on the road. They will end up changing to fit your new space and your new nomadic lifestyle. But your current behaviors are still a good starting point in this decision-making process. Just remember to be open to things changing once you’re actually on the road.

HOW DO YOU WANT TO USE THIS SPACE?

This rig will be your home, and like all homes, it needs to match who you are. Not in the décor and aesthetics sense, but its functionality. Obviously, it’s not possible for an RV to provide all the things that a house does. This is where you start to prioritize the things that are important to you. For example: I love sunlight and good views, so I wanted a rig with a lot of windows. We’re thrifty and don’t eat out often, so a good size kitchen that’s also accessible without putting the slide out (to easily make meals on travel days) was important to us. We love the outdoors and needed a lot of storage for all our various gear. Ask yourself how you’re going to use the space inside the rig.

Things To Consider

• What are your morning, meal time, and evening routines? These are the times when there’s the highest chance of conflict because everyone in your rig is up and about.

• What’s your cooking style? Do you love to cook or do you prefer eating out?

• How do your sleep habits differ between you, your partner, and kids? Do you need a way to close off the bedrooms from the rest of the rig? Or are you lucky enough that it’s just you and your pet?

• Do you plan to hang out in your rig a lot or use it just as a place to sleep?

• What does each person’s work (or school) schedule look like? Will people be competing for the same space (table) at busy times?

• Does anybody in the rig need a quiet or “professional looking” space for video calls?

• Are you okay with a bed that you have to put away each morning and set up in the evenings?

• Do you want space for entertaining fellow travelers or family and friends?

WHAT AMENITIES CAN’T YOU LIVE WITHOUT?

What amenities are truly important for you to have in a full-time rig? Aside from having running water and electricity, my two must-haves are an indoor kitchen and a toilet. Jerud’s is to sit up in bed without hitting his head. While I love camping, I don’t want to camp every day of my life – and having to cook and poop outside is part of what makes camping, well, camping. I know having to do that every single day would make me miserable. But, not having a shower isn’t a big deal to me. I’m fine taking a “shower” using a bowl and small towel.

Things To Consider

• Are you ok with a bed positioned so you have to crawl over each to get in and out?

• What about the ease of making the bed?

• Do you need to have a dedicated work space?

• Do you want running (hot) water on demand?

• Do you have health issues that create specific requirements?

• Would you be ok with a wet bath?

• Do you want to have a space permanently dedicated to a shower and/or toilet?

WHAT KINDS OF WEATHER WILL YOU MOSTLY BE IN?

Standard RVs are not meant for year-long, four-season living. Even though some offer “arctic packages” to handle cold temperatures, they’re still not as efficient as a house (they’d be extremely heavy if they were). But, your home on the road needs to be comfortable and safe for you and your family in the main types of weather you’ll be in. Getting caught in freezing temperatures a few times a year doesn’t justify forking out extra money for an arctic package. But if you plan to head to a ski town for the entire winter, every winter, then it’s probably worth buying a rig that does well in cold temperatures – even if you’re going to have full hook-ups – and even more so if you’re going to boondock.

Things To Consider

• Do you plan to follow sunny, 70-degree weather year-round? Or will it be necessary to have A/C?

• Do you plan on chasing good ski (or other cold-weather sport) conditions? How will you stay warm in freezing temperatures?

• Will you want a dedicated place to dry off rain/mud/snow before entering the rig? What about wet/muddy pets?

WHAT KIND OF PLACES DO YOU WANT TO STAY?

We knew as we were shopping for rigs that we wanted to boondock the majority of the time. Boondocking for us means BLM and national forest lands without any hookups (fresh water, RV dump, or electricity). We need to be self-sufficient and self-contained for the length of time we want to stay. We’d also needed a rig with the ability to handle the rough road conditions involved in getting to some of those places.

The capabilities of RVs vary greatly from how they drive to the amenities they offer on the inside. Your choice of RVs will be strongly affected by whether you stay in RV parks, developed campgrounds, moochdock with family or friends, or boondock on undeveloped sites.

Things To Consider

• Do you need a large or small fresh water tank? For example: you may not need a large fresh water tank if you only stay at RV parks, but you may need it if you have a big family and plan to boondock, or just want to stay out for a long time. Note: there are ways to overcome a too-small fresh tank (link to water bag).

• Do you prefer the standard RV toilet and black tank or are you interested in an alternative such as a composting or cassette toilet?

• Do you need a generator to provide back-up power while boondocking?

WHERE WILL YOU GET ELECTRICITY WHILE BOONDOCKING? 

Most people use the combination of propane and a generator to get their electricity while boondocking. But more and more full-timers are adding solar panels to their setup. You may not want any solar added because it does mean more work and money. Solar prep packages only get you a small head start on adding solar. But if you do want to implement some amount of solar on your rig, then how much of your electricity you want to get from the sun may affect the size and style of rig you get. Installing a lot of solar panels on a smaller rig (less than 20 ft. long) is possible but may require some compromises. Check out this document to help you figure out how much solar you may need.

Our main goal was to live in a 100% solar-powered rig, and that decision played a huge part in the rig we chose. To have 1,220 watts of solar panels meant we needed a lot of roof space, along with space inside for solar equipment. It could have been done on a smaller rig, but not without giving up other things we wanted to keep.

Things To Consider

• Rooftop solar panels require periodic cleaning which means going up on the roof. If that doesn’t sound fun, ground-deployed solar panels are an alternative – but they take up storage space on travel days.

• A rig with more space and higher weight capacity than you’d normally choose will be necessary if you want to add solar to your setup.

• If you decided to add rooftop solar panels, look for a roof that has all the stuff clustered together rather than spread across the whole roof to make mounting the panels easier.

• How long will you keep the rig? Solar power costs a lot up front but saves more money the longer you use it - we broke even after our first year - so in order to really compare solar vs. a generator, you need to know how long you’ll be using them.

WHAT’S YOUR TRAVEL STYLE?

How frequently you move from camp to camp may affect what kind of rig you get. If you plan to spend only a year on the road, but want to see the entire country, then you may only spend one or two nights at each location. Like most full-timers’ first year on the road, this was of our travel style. The newness of the lifestyle and our own eagerness caused us to travel extremely fast. Now we tend to max out the common 14-day stay limit on public lands.  

Our longer stays means we don’t have to set up the Toaster as frequently as before: leveling the rig with blocks and landing legs, unhitching the Toaster from the truck, extending the stabilizing jacks, pushing the slide out, and storing loose items on the bed while driving. And then undoing all that to travel again. It got old fast when we did it every few days.

Things To Consider

• How easy do you want setting up camp and breaking camp to be? Hydraulic landing legs, stabilizing jacks, and levelers instead of manual (hand-crank) versions and leveling blocks are very convenient if you plan to move frequently, or if you prefer not to do a lot of bending and reaching to set up camp.

• Do you want to stealth camp in towns? If so, a rig with slides out or lights coming through the windows scream “I’m sleeping in here!”

• Do you want to have to set up everything even for a quick overnight stay? Sometimes we don’t bother to put the slide out when staying in a parking lot or rest area for one night. If you end up with a rig with slides and consider doing the same as us, make sure you can access bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen without having to put them out.

WHAT KIND OF PLACES DO YOU WANT TO VISIT?

We don’t visit cities much, which is a good thing because towing the Toaster through the busy streets of NYC or Seattle is a pain. Not to mention parking; even the truck on its own is tough to maneuver. If you plan to spend time in cities, then you may want a smaller rig that can easily drive through crowded streets and fit in tighter parking spots. If you like to explore dirt roads, then a rig that provides a lot of maneuverability on tight and rough roads is important. Or maybe a setup that includes a toad (a normal car towed by the RV) is the best fit. 

Things To Consider

• Do you want a rig that can go on uneven terrain?

• Do you want a normal-size car to get around in or are you ok driving a big truck? What about having to park a dually (wide truck with “hips”) in parking lots?

• Do you want space on your rig to carry a motorcycle or bicycle to use as your alternative mode of transportation?

• Does your rig need to be under a maximum height to allow you to explore small, overgrown roads and remote locations off the main highways?

• Do you want a narrower rig so you can get into tight spaces in the woods?

• Do the places you want to visit require you to have 4WD?

HOW BIG IS YOUR FAMILY?

The size and type of rig you choose are affected by whether you’re a solo-traveler, have a newborn baby, have 3 teenagers, or anything in between. But there are no limits to what can be done: I’ve seen parents with a newborn live in a van, and a family of 5 live in a van. If they can fit into vans, then families of all sizes can live in rigs of all sizes. I feel like this is a particularly personal decision on what will work best for your family and keep everyone sane.

Things To Consider

• What’s an acceptable sleeping arrangement for your kids? Can they share beds?

• Do you want to be able to close your bedroom off from the rest of the rig? What about the kids’?

• Do your teenage kids need private space?

• How much storage space is needed for clothing, gear, toys, food, etc.?

• Where will your children hang out and play? I’ve seen parents set up enclosed playpens outside their rigs for younger kids or hang a bouncy chair from the ceiling of their rig.

• Do your kids need a dedicated space for school?

• What do you do if you need a quiet place to be on a conference call?

DO YOU HAVE PETS?

One of the main reasons we chose a larger rig over other options was our larger dog Tybee. It was critical that we had a safe space for her (and of course Tyki). She was 12 years old when we hit the road and her mobility was already decreasing. We knew we could no longer bring her with us on every hike or any bike rides. So, it was important for us to purchase a rig that was big enough for her to easily move around in and comfortable enough for her to stay on her own.

Things To Consider

• What kind of space to you need to keep your pet safe while she’s alone? Does she need to be crated? What about climate control (back to the decision to have A/C or not)?

• Where will your pet sleep?

• Does your pet have special needs? For example, Tybee couldn’t go up steps on her own, so we built her a ramp inside the Toaster.

• Do you have a dedicated spot for a litter box for your cat?

• Do you have a breed of dog that easily gets warm (like a Bernese mountain dog) or cold (like pit bulls)?

NEXT STEP: RENT AN RV

Once you’ve answered these questions, sit on them for a while. Then be brutally honest with yourself about your needs vs. wants. Frequently the things you think you absolutely must have, aren’t actually a big part of your everyday life. The reality is that buying an RV involves a lot of compromises. Even the largest RVs are small spaces compared to a house, which probably means between budget, size, travel size, and comfort, you’ll have to make some trade-offs.

That’s why the next step is to rent an RV and take it on an actual trip (preferably longer than a weekend). We never rented and only brought our rig on one test trip before we started the rebuilding process. But we often wish we rented a few different rigs. Yes, renting a few rigs cost extra money, but that expense is nothing compared to the cost of the rig you’re about to buy. It makes sense to spend a little extra so you can be sure you’ll be happy with your big purchase. It’s ok if you don’t know the exact types of rigs you’re considering buying yet. Having first-hand experience living in an RV and spending time on the road is invaluable. Renting an RV can help confirm your answers to the questions above, or help you realize things you’ve overlooked.

To help make this step a little bit easier on the bank, we’ve partnered with Outdoorsy, a company that connects travelers and private, unique vehicles available for rent. Outdoorsy has a special offer: use the code LiveSmallRideFree to save $50 on any bookings. Another perk about this code is it can be used twice per user, with no restrictions or expiration date! So, go make your next vacation be one in an RV and simultaneously start narrowing down what rig you want to live in.

We’re an Outdoorsy affiliate, but all thoughts and suggestions in this post are my own.

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Crowley Lake is 15 miles from Mammoth Lakes and is actually a reservoir that was created in 1941 by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (300 miles away and still owns the lake today!) when they built the Long Valley Dam. The lake is extremely popular for trout fishing and there’s a marina on the south end.

These helical columns were formed after a volcanic eruption that occurred over 760,000 years ago. Snowmelt seeped into the still hot tuff (porous rocks formed from consolidated volcanic ash), causing the water to boil and create even spaces between the columns. But they remained buried until the reservoir was built. It was the constant pounding of waves that slowly carved out the softer material at the base of the cliffs, which are made up of pumice. Since its discovery, scientists have counted over 5,000 columns covering over a mile of shoreline on the east side of the lake, varying in color, height, and shape.

 Through our own trial and error, we learned that there are three ways to access the lake to see them; two require you to paddle there.

North Landing

The first one is from North Landing of Crowley Lake. The downside to this access is that you can only put-in inflatable boats. All hard-sided boats are required to be inspected at the main lake entrance off of Hwy 395 at South Landing. The road from North Landing to the lake is blocked off with offset concrete barriers.  The sign says it’s there to keep vehicles with boat trailers from accessing the lake in an effort to prevent the spread of invasive mussels, which is why non-inflatable boats have to be inspected before entering the lake. We couldn’t drive through those barriers in our shuttle bus; our F-250 truck (with a supercab and long bed) wouldn’t have made it either. Smaller vehicles can zig-zag through the barriers without hitting them. From North Landing, it’d be about a mile-long paddle across Crowley to the columns.

Crowley Lake Boat Launch

The second and, in our opinion, best option is to access the lake is from the boat launch on South Landing Rd. There is a $10 parking fee if you want to park near the boat launch. Otherwise you can park outside the gate and walk in. Power boats and kayaks can be rented from the Crowley Lake Fish Camp, located near the launch. The paddle from the boat launch to the columns will be around 2 miles (one-way).

BLM Jeep Road

If you don’t want to paddle, this last option is for you. There is a jeep road that leads to shore on the east side of the lake. From there, you can hike the rest of the way down to the columns. I don’t know how far of a hike it is to the lake since we didn’t make it out on that road. This article in Wander provides clear directions. According to Mono County visitor center and our own experience, only vehicles with high clearance and 4WD should drive on this road. Seriously.

We chose to paddle out to see the Crowley Lake columns and think it’s definitely the best way to see them. Staying close to shore, we could see all the various formations along the edge of the lake. Some columns were fully exposed, while others were only unhidden in sections, and others looked like fossils buried in the cliffside. There were two beach areas where we could pull our Alpacka packraft up on shore and walk up to the columns. You can actually walk through one of the sets of columns, which also happens to be on a wide beach that’s great for hanging out and swimming. Oh, and if you see anything that looks like soggy bread floating in the lake – it’s actually pumice rocks!!!

Tips on visiting Crowley Lake

• Paddlers, keep in mind that the wind often picks up at the lake in the afternoons.

• Be prepared with the proper paddling clothing and gear in case the weather changes last minute. It may be hot and sunny, but the clouds can quickly roll in and the water is cold.

• Remember to pack it in, pack it out. This includes food, drinks, personal belongings, and human/dog feces.

• Don’t remove any obsidian or pumice rocks from this area. Leave it so others can also enjoy it.

• Please don’t damage the columns in any way. It only takes a handful of bad eggs for a place to become off-limits.

• There are swift nests in the ceilings of the columns, and they constantly fly in and out of the area. Be respectful of them and any other wildlife you come across.

• Remember to pee at least 200 ft. away from natural water sources.

• The beach areas may change depending on water levels.

• The rocks and sand are pretty rough to walk on barefoot, you may want to bring closed-toe shoes if you’re paddling.

• Familiarize yourself with Leave No Trace principles

  • Plan ahead and prepare

  • Travel and camp on durable surfaces

  • Dispose of waste properly

  • Leave what you find

  • Minimize campfire impacts

  • Respect wildlife

  • Be considerate to other visitors

  • (Tag thoughtfully on social media)

We visited the lake on June 11, 2019.

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This post will most likely make people who can’t talk about bodily functions squeamish. If that’s the case, I can save you the trouble and tell you that a composting toilet most likely isn’t for you. But otherwise, keep on reading to find out if a composting toilet is a good fit. 

Cost 

Let’s just be real and say it - composing toilets are expensive! The two most common brands are Nature’s Head and Air Head (we have the latter), and they cost between $900 - $1,000. That is not cheap for something you shit and pee in. Especially when you look at the fact that they don’t actually compost poop. But they do make life a lot more convenient. For me, the two things that make these composting toilets valuable are that they divert the liquid away from the solid and there’s a fan and vent to keep the solid tank dry. Those are crucial to keeping the shit smell to zero.

There’s also potentially the extra cost of hiring someone to install it for you if you’re not the handy type or just don’t want to deal with it yourself. Keep in mind, there may be cheaper composting toilets out there that I’m not aware of.

Large Families

I’ve mentioned in previous toilet posts that we typically empty our solid tank (where the poop goes) every three weeks. That’s the two of us pooping once a day, every day. If your family consists of more people, then obviously that means more poop which equals emptying the solid tank more frequently. While emptying the solid tank isn’t difficult, it is extra work that you may not want to do as often as every one or two weeks. A black tank could potentially offer you more time in between dumps.

Sometimes we wish we had connected our composting toilet pee bottle to our gray tank. That would save us from having empty it every two days. Jerud likes to pee outside, and when he does throughout the day it means we don’t have to empty for three days. With a larger family though, it could need emptying it as frequently as every day.

Unable To Find Places To Empty Your Toilet

I don’t find it difficult to find places to empty our toilet, but I can imagine situations where it may be. The pee bottle is super easy to empty when we’re boondocking in the woods (remember to stay away from water sources and be considerate of other visitors). The solid tank isn’t really hard either because it just goes into a public dumpster. (More on how to empty your composting toilet in Where To Responsibly Empty Your Composting Toilet). The difficulties may arise if you mainly travel in cities. You can’t just empty your pee bottle anywhere in urban settings – especially not down a storm drain because those empty directly into natural waterways. While public dumpsters are more readily available in developed areas, the downside is that emptying your solid tank into a trash bag may be harder to do without drawing unwanted attention. There are workarounds for both: you can bring your pee bottle into a public bathroom and empty it down the toilet and your solid tank can be emptied into a trash bag at night, in secluded places, or inside your rig.

Don’t Want To Wrestle A Bucket Of Shit

When the solids tank is full it weighs probably 10 - 15 lbs. (this is a guess since we’ve never actually weighed it). But that’s something to keep in mind when considering a composting toilet. Are you able to carry a solid tank that’s full, either on its own or still attached to the rest of the toilet, outside to be emptied into a trash bag? (Now try doing that without poking a hole in the bag with the agitator handle!) Are you able to lift that amount of weight around shoulder height to toss the trash bag into a dumpster? 

The other thing to consider is that it’s more of a hassle to empty the solid tank with just one person. Our method is one person flips the solid tank into a trash bag that’s being held around the outside of the tank while the other person cranks the agitator handle to loosen up the content. But here’s the hard part: sometimes a large chunk of poop/coco pith mixture is stuck to the bottom of the container. That’s when we pull out the broken ski pole we carry just for this purpose to poke and prod the stuff until it’s loose enough to empty into the trash bag we’re using. The problem is that unless one person is holding open the trash bag while the other person dumps, the poop misses the bag and ends up everywhere. This isn’t a problem when we have the poop to coco pith ratio perfect, then it easily falls out of the tank when tipped upside down the first time around.

The last thing that may steer you away from having a composting toilet is the fact you are forced to confront your own shit semi-regularly. With a black tank, unless it spills, you don’t ever see the sludge in your tank (but when you do, I imagine it’s a lot more disgusting than what’s in a composting toilet). With these toilets, you’re face to face with your shit during the emptying process. When the mixture is done right it just looks (and smells) like dirt, but when it’s not then it’s gooey and gross.

Can’t Move Your Butt

The shape of a composting toilet seat isn’t different from a traditional toilet, but the mechanism of how it works is – so there will be a short adjustment period. For guys who need to stand to pee, the Air Head manual clearly states it’s doable but should aim away from the holes in the toilet bowl that diverts the pee into the bottle. Ladies, we get to pee like we always do. But it gets a bit tricky when it comes to pooping. Since you no longer have the entire toilet bowl to shit into, you actually have to aim. Luckily the size of the hole we poop into is good, and for the most part it’s aligned well enough with your butt that accuracy isn’t hard to achieve. But there’s still a need to look down between your legs when you’re seated and adjust to your butt to be absolutely sure that you’re lined up nicely. This is more necessary when you first get the toilet, but even after 4 years of using it I still occasionally check because I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Squeamish

If you can’t handle seeing poop, then a composting toilet isn’t for you. Aside from being up close and personal to a bucket full of shit when it’s time to empty your toilet, you’ll probably catch glimpses of it every time you poop. Sometimes you’ll see poop as you adjust your butt on the toilet to ensure your aim is correct. Sometimes you’ll see poop after you’re done to make sure the trap door isn’t going to close on a pile of it or catch any toilet paper. Sometimes there’s a sneaky turd that ends up on top of the trap door (aka liquid diverter door). Sometimes you’ll see poop when you open the trap door to check on the status of the contents in the solid tank: Is it too full? Does it need more organic matter? Did you stir it well enough with the agitator? And it’s not always your own poop you’re looking at.

Smells Like Ammonia

Urine doesn’t have much of a smell in small quantities. But when you have a large container full of it, it can force you to take a step back when the ammonia smell hits your nose. I’ve actually heard a full-timer say she chooses to empty the poop container and has her husband handle the pee bottle. If you really don’t like the smell of ammonia, be aware that you’ll get a whiff of it every three days or less. In addition to the smell, there will be scales/flakes that form on the inside walls of the urine bottle. I believe it’s caused by the uric acid in our urine as the collection bottle gets a higher concentration of urine each time we use it. It precipitates, leaving behind thick flakes. Sometimes the flakes will come out in chunks when you pour the pee bottle out. There’s nothing to worry about this health-wise, but it may be visually a turn off for some. But because we don’t frequently clean our pee bottle out, the inside walls of our bottle is permanently covered in these scales.

Can’t Stop On Command

The great thing about composting toilets is that they divert liquid and solid waste. This works thanks to a trap door built into the toilet bowl that you open when you need to poop and close if you just need to pee. This can become kind of a game when it’s time to take a dump. Poop time - open the trap door. Oh wait, I need to pee - close the trap door. Crap, I’m not done pooping – open the trap door. You get the picture.

Naturally every body works differently, but in order for a composting toilet to be most effective, you need to be able to pee and poop separately. If you can’t, then your solid tank is going to be extra wet leading to a smellier toilet. If you just can’t do it then perhaps it’s time to start doing your Kegel exercises every day.

Have A Sensitive Stomach

Or if you’re “an adventurous eater” as our friend Brad likes to say. In any case, if your turds are less like soft-serve and more like watering the grass then it’ll be hard to get everything down the trap door every time. You may end up cleaning the toilet bowl a bit more frequently. That’s not always the case with diarrhea, but just be prepared.

Hate Cleaning The Toilet

One of the perks of having a composting toilet is that you’re not wasting your limited fresh water on flushing. But it turns out there’s actually a small benefit to having water in your toilet – it helps keep it clean for longer. Peeing into a dry toilet bowl dirties it quickly. We have a small spray bottle with a 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar (we add a few drops of essential oil to mask the vinegar smell) in our bathroom and spray our toilet almost after each use. Whenever I think of it or our toilet gets dirtier than I like, I’ll pour some hot water into the toilet bowl to do a quick clean up. We actually don’t scrub our toilet bowl too often, but we probably should.

Aside from that, sometimes it’s necessary to actually wipe the toilet bowl down after a use to either clean up that skid mark or whatever else. The trap door also gets dirty fairly quickly, usually on the section that isn’t visible when it’s closed. We also keep a small container of coco pith or wood chips (whichever we happen to be using at the time) in our bathroom basket. Whenever the solid tank is too wet, instead of taking the toilet seat off the tank, I’ll just open the trap door and pour the organic matter into the solid tank. That never goes in perfectly, so I end up having to clean up around the trap door.

SO, IS A COMPOSTING TOILET THE ONE FOR YOU?

Despite all these potential deterrents, the composting toilet is still our first choice. It fits better with our lifestyle and how we travel. We’ve also had visiting friends who’ve used it without any issues or complaints. But it’s totally fine if the composting toilet isn’t for you. There are actually several alternative toilets options that may be a better fit: cassette toilet, traditional RV toilet, bucket toilet, and dry flush toilet. Check out this blog post by Parked In Paradise that break down the pros and cons of some of these toilets.

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It felt like a waste if we didn’t visit Yellowstone National Park while we were living only 100 miles away for the winter season. So, when our friends Dolly and Bill mentioned they were also interested in a trip to Yellowstone while they were in town, I looked into snowmobile tours.

The thought of Yellowstone blanketed in a layer of snow and surrounded by the quiet winter was so enticing. But what I realized during our trip there was since we’re spending winter in Teton Valley surrounded by the peaks of Jackson (WY) and Victor (ID), we were already surrounded by a beautiful winter landscape. I also feel like Yellowstone is made to be appreciated for its vibrant kaleidoscopic colors.

Perhaps I would feel differently if our day at the park was under blue skies. Or if we were on skis or snowshoes deep in the heart of the park. But we weren’t.

Don’t get me wrong, as far as guided tours go, our snowmobile tour was good. We were part of a group of 9 snowmobiles, which is fewer than I expected. I really appreciated how organized the tour was. All the snowmobiles were driven in an orderly fashion - one behind the other on the road. We also parked this way in rows next to other tour groups when we stopped at scenic overlooks. There were a lot fewer people visiting the park while we were there in February than in other seasons. The roads weren’t filled with snowmobiles or snowcoaches, and the boardwalks we strolled on to see hot springs weren’t covered in people. Justin, our guide with Two Tops Snowmobile, seemed truly passionate about the park. He was full of knowledge about the landscape and wildlife, and enthusiastic to share it with us. Most importantly, I felt like he really respected the park. I hope this is something all the tour companies promote and encourage of their employees, but I don’t know. Justin was also very thoughtful and kind to me during the tour since I was in a medical boot with a torn Achilles tendon. For example, lunch was at the Old Faith Geyser Basin lodge and it was a walk from where we parked our snowmobiles. Not much of a walk if both your legs are working, but it was longer than I could comfortably do in my condition, especially after all the walking I had already done to see iconic features of the park. Justin picked me up from the Old Faithful visitor center and drove me to the lodge for lunch and then picked me up and drove me back to our snowmobiles.

I was initially conflicted about the negative environmental impact of snowmobiling in Yellowstone. While I’m not familiar with snowmobiles, I’ve heard a lot of them are 2-stroke engines and those are known to be terrible for the environment, not to mention really noisy. But I was really surprised and happy to learn that Yellowstone only allows 4-stroke engine snowmobiles in the park. Our tour in the park was 60 miles roundtrip and our machine used 1.9 gallons of fuel. So our 200+ mile roundtrip drive from Victor, Idaho to West Yellowstone, Montana was far higher impact than the snowmobile tour!

While snowmobiling allow visitors to see a wider range of the park and lets them be autonomous up to a certain point, there are also limitations to a snowmobile tour. Since it’s a tour, you’re following the guide at all times. This means there isn’t any driving at your own speed, stopping whenever you want to enjoy the scenery or take photos, or going exploring on your own in any way. But to Justin’s credit, he chose great locations to stop for us to enjoy the scenery.

If you’re interested in a snowmobile tour in Yellowstone National Park, below is a collection of information and my tips.

Yellowstone National Park Restrictions

All roads except between Mammoth Hot Springs and the north entrance are closed to regular vehicles in Winter. The only way to visit the park in the winter time is via snowmobile, snowcoach, or self-powered via skis or snowshoes from December through mid-March. All except the last two activities have to be done via a commercial tour (with one exception below).

Since December 2015, all snowmobiles that enter Yellowstone must meet NPS requirements for new Best Available Technology (BAT). This is outstanding to see because BAT snowmobiles are quieter and produce a lot fewer air emissions. It’s exciting to see the NPS create these restrictions, putting a priority on the park’s environment and wildlife.

Yellowstone also offers a Non-commercially Guided Snowmobile Program where people can visit the park on snowmobiles without being part of a commercial tour. Permits are awarded through a lottery system (application accepted August 1 – 31) and only four non-commercial groups are allowed to enter the entire park daily. This means only one group is allowed to come into the park from each entrance. The maximum group size is five snowmobiles per permit.

Unlike in national forests where snowmobilers can bring their machines off-trail, this isn’t the case in Yellowstone. Snowmobiles are limited to plowed roads only. I actually didn’t realize this restriction until I was on the park’s website, but it makes sense.

Why We Chose Snowmobiles

Honestly, mainly because I didn’t think more about our trip ahead of time. I was familiar with visiting Yellowstone via snowmobiles because that’s how everyone I talked to visited the park. While I did a quick visit through the national park’s website (which is full of great information if I had put more time into it), I had only focused on snowmobiling information.

But going on a snowmobile ended up working out well: we got to see more of the park (even if all briefly) and I since had torn my Achilles tendon before the trip, I couldn’t have gone snowshoeing or skiing.

Sure, being in a snowcoach would’ve been warmer, but also being driven through the park inside a vehicle isn’t our kind of thing. Snowshoeing/skiing would’ve been great, but aside from me not physically able to do it, we would’ve only seen a small section of the park. Although once at Yellowstone, we saw snowcoaches that had skis stored on the back of the vehicles. It turns out that you can go skiing by having snowcoaches drive you to certain areas (I haven’t looked into the specific details, but at least now know that it’s an option). The park website includes an extensive list of trails that visitors can snowshoe and ski on.

What To Consider For Snowmobile Tours

Cost: It’s expensive. Our tour cost us around $320. This was renting one snowmobile for both Jerud and me to share. The only two additional costs we paid for was $15 for insurance and $6 for each helmet. We didn’t rent clothes and didn’t have to pay for the park entrance fee since we have the NPS annual pass. I looked into using a company in Jackson, Wyoming but their base cost was at least $100 more.

Tour companies: Yellowstone National Park’s website has a list of companies that offer snowmobile and snowcoach tours. Our friends Dave and Amanda of Travelish recommended Two Tops Snowmobile (based out of West Yellowstone, Montana). Turns out their cost was also the best out of the companies I looked at. 

Choosing Which Yellowstone Entrance: Since we’re currently spending winter in Victor, Idaho, our two entrance options are west and south. Even though the west entrance is in Montana and the south entrance is in Wyoming, it’s nearly the same distance mileage-wise to get to either from Victor. The main deciding factor ended up being cost because the companies in Jackson were so much pricier.

Coming from Victor, Idaho, each entrance has its own potential logistical issue – in this case, possible road closures. Teton Pass is a high mountain pass located between Wilson, Wyoming and Victor, Idaho. This is the main way to get to Jackson from Victor. But the pass occasionally closes for avalanche control (this has happened and negatively affected our plans a few times this winter). If this occurs, the only other way is a 2-hour detour via Alpine, Wyoming where road conditions aren’t necessarily any better.

Heading to West Yellowstone, Montana from Victor also poses two potential road closures: ID-32 and ID-20. ID-32 runs through the flats of Idaho and often closes due to high winds. Two Tops warned me that sometimes ID-20 will close right before entering the town of West Yellowstone. The detour is long. I was told we wouldn’t get a refund if we couldn’t make it to our tour, even if it’s because of road closures. Two Tops also said that they don’t sell tours to individuals coming from Jackson, due to the double risk of both Teton pass AND Idaho highway closures.

While we made it to Two Tops for our snowmobile tour, ID-32 did close on our way back to Victor and we ended up taking a detour that added an hour to our return trip.

Two Tops offers two snowmobile tours: Old Faithful or Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We chose Old Faithful because we’ve never seen it in person. 

Clothing: Staying warm was my biggest worry. I figured it’d be super cold sitting on a snowmobile going 35 mph in 10 degree weather! While Two Tops rents one-piece snowmobile outfits (along with insulated boots and gloves), we figured we owned enough outdoor gear to stay warm. Turns out we did:

Legs: I wore two pairs of fleece tights and insulated snowboard pants

Fleece: Patagonia Crosstrek pants

Snowboard pants: Patagonia Powderbowl insulated snow pants

Body: I had three layers on (two Smartwool layers and a Patagonia R1). Over that I wore a thick Patagonia jacket and then a hard shell (my snowboard jacket/raincoat) over it for windproof.  

Baselayer: Smartwool Merino 250 base layer

Mid-layer: Patagonia R1 pullover

Insulated jacket: Patagonia Hyper Puff hoody jacket

Hardshell: Patagonia Triolet jacket

Head: We rented helmets that had a plastic face shield and it did a really good job keeping the wind off our faces. A full-face balaclava came with the helmet rental, but I added my own Smartwool neck gaiter for extra warmth.

Neck gaiter: Smartwool Merino 150 neck gaiter 

Hands: I wore Smartwool glove liners and Black Diamond insulated gloves.

Liners: Smartwool Merino 250 gloves

Gloves: Black Diamond Ankhiale Goretex mitts

Feet: My footwear of choice were Keen insulated boots. Since I had a medical boot on my right foot (because of my torn Achilles tendon), I couldn’t wear a regular shoe on that foot and was concerned my foot would get really cold. I wore two pairs of thick knee-high socks and one waterproof paddling sock on that foot (inside the boot).

Boots: Keen Revel II boots

Socks: Smartwool PhD Slopestyle medium socks

Waterproof socks: NRS Sandal socks

My right foot surprisingly stayed fairly warm, although both feet eventually got cold at the end of the day. Overall my hands were the coldest part of me, but I think that’s because I kept taking my gloves off to take photos.  

Upgrade Your Snowmobile

We wouldn’t have voluntarily chosen to upgrade our snowmobile, but the nicer ones were the only ones available when I made reservations. For $40 more, our snowmobiles came with heated seats and grips, nicer shocks, and a covered storage box for our personal gear. It was totally worth the extra money, mainly because of the heated seats! The heated seats worked incredibly well. So well in fact that my butt was burning up at times. Turned out having one part of my body being heated really helped me stay warm overall. The heated grips were also really nice to have, although the grips for the driver were a lot warmer than the passenger’s. I actually had one too many layers of gloves on to feel the heat. This isn’t a special feature on the upgraded snowmobiles, but the driver’s feet are placed right by where the engine heat is emitted – indirectly keeping them warm. As a passenger, I was surprised that my feet were somewhat protected from the wind while sitting in the back seat. It was really nice having a covered storage box for our backpack that held our lunch, camera gear, and water. Without it our bags would’ve sat in an open cubby behind the passenger seat.

Lunch Options

Dine out or brown bag it! We brought our own thermos filled with soup, but lunch can be purchased at the Old Faithful Geyser Basin lodge. The downside of buying lunch is potentially waiting in a long line because a lot of the tour groups take lunch around the same time. We only got an hour lunch break, so being able to relax instead of stand in line was nice.

While I hope to go back to Yellowstone during the winter on cross-country skis to see the wilder side of the park, I’m glad we got to experience it the way we did this winter.

We visited the park on February 10, 2019.

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Featured Posts

If you’re not familiar with the term “boondocking”, please first read my Let’s Talk about RV Boondocking post.

Leave No Trace Principles:

1.     Plan Ahead And Prepare

2.     Travel and camp on durable surfaces

3.     Dispose of waste properly

4.     Leave What You Find

5.     Minimize Campfire Impacts

6.     Respect Wildlife

7.     Be Considerate Of Other Visitors

8.     Extra: Tag Thoughtfully

Plan Ahead And Prepare

Planning ahead and being prepared are key to having a positive boondocking experience. They’re also crucial to ensuring we’re using our public lands responsibly. This is an extremely important principle because it prevents bad behaviors. By being prepared, we avoid putting ourselves in situations where bad decisions are even a potential option. For example, knowing ahead of time that a boondocking area is going to be extra busy due to holidays means not having to consider creating a new boondocking spot to fit your rig. Having locally purchased firewood on hand means not being tempted to chop down trees.

• Each boondocking area (aka dispersed camping) has different rules and regulations. Research and know the rules in the area you’re planning to stay in. This includes the stay limit, where you’re allowed to camp, fire and usage restrictions, etc. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse; “I didn’t know I can’t camp here” does not hold water.

• Know the weather forecast and potential hazards because it may change where you choose to stay. For example, you don’t want to be boondocked near a desert wash if there’s rain in the forecast due to flash flooding dangers.

• Avoid popular places during holidays and other times of high use. Not only is there the possibility of not finding a boondock site during busy times, but heavy traffic is harder on the land.

• Be prepared with enough supplies: water, food, and fuel. Some boondock locations are remote and may not have any amenities in the area, including cell services.

Travel And Camp On Durable Surfaces

Be responsible about where you plan to boondock and how you get there. Traveling improperly can cause irreversible damage to the natural environment above and below the ground. For example: the desert may seem barren and tough, but some of the most fragile organisms live there in the form of cryptobiotic crust soil. Cryptobiotic crust consists of algae, fungi and cyanobacteria mixed with soil. This mixture becomes a delicate crust on the surface that resists erosion, and provides soil stability and nutrients – all of which allow plants to grow. This type of soil is crucial to the arid and semi-arid ecosystem. Cryptobiotic soil is easily damaged from human and animal footsteps, and vehicle and bike tracks. It may take five to seven years for a thin top layer of cryptobiotic crust soil to regenerate. It’s estimated to take 50+ years in favorable conditions for damaged areas of soil crust to be fully functional again.

• Durable surfaces include established campsites and trails, rock, gravel, sand, and dry grasses. The majority of dispersed camping rules require users to stay in established campsites and not create new ones.

• Don’t create your own new boondock site and don’t enlarge or alter any existing sites. If your rig doesn’t fit then look for another place to stay.

• Avoid soft-packed sandy/dirt roads during or after a rainfall. These types of roads can turn into a mud pit and become extremely hard to drive on or simply impassable. Soft, muddy roads shouldn’t be driven on because tires create deep tracks that damage roads.

• Sometimes it’s necessary to scout out a road or boondock site by foot or bicycle before driving in to make sure your rig will make it down a dirt road and fit in the spot you have your eye on. Dirt roads may start off gentle but turn into a pothole nightmare, require 4-wheel drive, or have low branches in the way. There may also be occasions where you need to turn around but there aren’t any pull-out spots large enough to use.

• Protect and minimize the negative impact to water sources by camping at least 200 feet from lakes, rivers, and any other natural bodies of water. This is extremely crucial if you need to dispose of human waste (via cat holes) or wastewater (dishwater or toothpaste). Following this rule helps create extra barriers for wastewater to filter through before reaching water sources since food bits, cooking grease, shampoo, soaps, and lotions are harmful to aquatic life. Even biodegradable shampoos, soaps, and lotions are pollutants when they enter into our natural waterways.

Dispose Of Waste Properly

Pack it in, pack it out! Leave your boondock site cleaner than you found it! Before leaving an area, ask yourself: did you leave anything behind that wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for you and other visitors?

•  Pack it in, pack it out – more often than not there aren’t trash cans or dumpsters where you’re boondocking. Also, be the better person and clean up your campsite/boondock site, even if it’s not your mess.

• Don’t leave your garbage outside. Wild critters (birds included) will tear trash bags apart looking for delicious leftovers, leaving you with a scattering of coffee grounds and green pepper seeds to pick up, not to mention other non-edible trash blowing around.

• If your rig doesn’t have a toilet in it and there aren’t public toilets nearby, be sure to dig a cat hole that’s 6 – 8 inches deep and at least 200 feet from water, camp, and trails to deposit your poop in. Not sure how far away 200 feet is? Take about 80 steps. Remember to pack out your toilet paper (and tampons).

• If you’re in a rig that has gray water and/or black water tanks, be sure to never ever empty them on public lands. The proper place to empty those is at an RV dump station.

• The poop tank of composting toilets should never be emptied on public lands either. Even if you dig a big and deep hole. The contents in a composting toilet are not safely composted. Pee bottles can be emptied outside – contents should be spread in a wider area and at least 200 feet away from streams, lakes, etc. Read my post Where To Responsibly Empty Your Composting Toilet.

• Scattering small amounts of dishwater (from a few meals) and shower water is ok. But carry water 200 feet away from natural water sources, use small amounts of biodegradable soap, and strain the dishwater of food first (food bits go in the trash). Never shower with shampoo and soap or wash your dishes directly in lakes and rivers. Read my post Living On The Road: Showering Outside.

• Organic matter such as orange skins, banana peels, or apple cores are biodegradable (takes two weeks to two months), but they still shouldn’t be tossed out in the woods or desert. That’s littering! You may think, “Oh that’s not long at all! It’ll be gone before I leave the boondock site or when I come back again!” But now if everyone thought that and tossed their food into the woods, then it would quickly pile up. None of us choose boondocking to check out piles of trash. On top of that, tossing food out like that actually harms wildlife. Read more about it under the Respect Wildlife principle below.

Leave What You Find

As Leave No Trace for Outdoor Ethics says, “Good campsites are found, not made. Altering a site is not necessary.”

• Boondockers shouldn’t have to cut down trees or vegetation, dig up the ground, or make any other changes in order to be able to stay there with their rig. If that’s the case, then that’s not the spot for you.

• Sometimes there may be trees or bushes in the way as you drive to your boondock site. Those shouldn’t be cut off or driven over. Find another route to get to your site or find another site.

• Please leave cultural and historic structures and artifacts alone and for others to enjoy. This goes the same with wildflowers, plants and even pretty rocks. 

• Leave what you find unless it’s trash left behind from other campers. Be good stewards of the environment and leave a campsite better than you found it.

Minimize Campfire Impacts

Sure, we all love a good evening hangout by a campfire. But it’s not necessary to have one to enjoy the outdoors – especially when there’s a risk of forest fire. From June 1 through December 31, 2018, the entire Santa Fe National Forest was closed due to high fire hazard. Initially it was just a forest wide fire ban. But despite the ban, forest and fire officials found over 120 abandoned campfires, 84 of which were over Memorial Day weekend alone. Since visitors couldn’t follow the rules, officials closed the entire forest for safety.

• Find out what the campfire restrictions are where you’re staying. Aside from potentially getting fined for having a campfire during a fire ban, you could cause a forest fire - leaving you potentially responsible for the millions of dollar bill. Don’t be that person.

• Use established fire rings or fire pans if campfires are permitted. Campfires scar the natural landscape so don’t add your own fire ring to an area. Keep fires small; you’re not using them to alert the next town over of a military ambush!

• Fallen trees and standing dead trees provide shelter for animals, not to mention provide stability and nutrients to the soil. Only gather dead and down wood (if permitted). Only burn locally-sourced firewood to prevent the spread of disease and respect local restrictions on bringing in firewood from outside the region.

• Burn all wood and coals to ash, make sure to put campfires out completely by drenching with water and stirring. It should be cool to the touch before you walk away from it. That means you can touch it with your hand. Yes, really.

Respect Wildlife

Whether or not you think you’re in their home when you’re boondocking, it comes down to respect for another living being. And besides, some of them are a whole lot bigger than we are and have sharper teeth.

• Keep your distance from wildlife. Don’t be that idiotic person who died because s/he decided to take a selfie with a bear and then the poor bear had the be put down because of the person’s stupidity.

• Don’t feed wildlife. Ever. You may think feeding them is helping them out, but it actually harms them. It damages their health, alters their natural behaviors, and desensitizes them to people. Feeding wildlife causes them to come to campsites more frequently searching for food which then typically creates the need for the animals to be relocated or even killed. This includes not leaving your trash out or tossing food into the woods.

• Leave adequate space for wildlife to feel safe to access nearby water sources by parking your rig at least 200 feet away.

• Keep an eye on your pets and have them under voice control if they’re off-leash. For everyone’s safety, don’t let your pets chase wildlife. Did you know that desert tortoises store water in their bladder to use during the dry months? But when they’re scared, their defensive mechanism is to empty their bladder – leaving them at a huge disadvantage during the dry season. 

Be Considerate Of Other Visitors

One of the main reasons why we turn off paved roads in search of undeveloped open spaces is to escape the everyday chaos of people, noise, and the crazy ways of the worlds. We search for solitude when we leave civilization behind. It’s essential to keep this in mind is when boondocking, especially when you have neighbors nearby. Protect the quality of your and their experience in the wild.

• Respect quiet hours. Even though there isn’t anyone regulating them, be extra thoughtful during evenings and early mornings.

• Keep in mind that loud voices, music, and noises travel far in open spaces.

• If you have a generator, keep its use to a minimum. There’s no better way to upset your neighbors than the loud continuous hum of a generator. Try to find ways to cover its sound and don’t use it for long periods of time – especially late at night and early morning.

• Keep your boondock site tidy; you’re sharing public land with others. This means don’t scatter your personal belongings everywhere, and if you’re working on a major repair or renovation project, keep your mess to a minimum.

• Boondocking is nothing like staying in an RV park, so don’t park like you’re in one! This means giving each other space when choosing a site. We all want scenic spots to boondock in, so it sucks to stare at another rig instead of scenery when you look out the window.

Tag Thoughtfully

This isn’t one of the original seven principles, but it’s becoming as important as the others. “Tag thoughtfully” was added in the past year or two in response to the negative effects social media was having on outdoor locations.

Social media via Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and others has dramatically increased the traffic our public lands receive. A lot of these places are too fragile to handle the uptick in human traffic and its impact. Or don’t have the infrastructure to handle a dramatic increase in visitors. For example, a “nondescript swimming hole” in Virginia’s national forest become highly-sought after when photos of it were posted on Instagram. This place used to see 10 to 20 people a day during the busy season, but thanks to social media those numbers jumped to 400 per day.

Campgrounds, hiking trails, and large areas of parks have closed due to too much traffic - along with the garbage and human waste that comes from visitors chasing a hashtag without following or even knowing about Leave No Trace principles.  

There are many websites that are already sharing boondock locations - read my post 8 Ways To Find Free Boondock Sites that can help those who are new to boondocking. But the truth is that a lot of boondock locations are becoming overcrowded and damaged from too much traffic and lack of understanding about sustainable use. So please, think twice before tagging the exact location of your boondock site, whether it’s the name of the place or GPS coordinates. Instead use more general tags like a nearby city or the national forest it’s in. Something about letting others experience the thrill of discovery.

Last Thoughts

The trend of #vanlife and #roadlife doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all and I’m seeing more and more rigs boondocking in the woods. I truly worry that if people aren’t aware of and follow proper boondocking etiquette that forest officials will start closing places off for dispersed camping. We all love the freedom living on the road gives and a huge part of that is the ability to call so many gorgeous public lands home. Let’s all do our part and take care for these lands along with sharing with others how to responsibly recreate outside.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING YOUR AMAZON PURCHASES THROUGH OUR AFFILIATE LINK.

Related Posts

Originally published May 22, 2017

In the last post, I talked about a variety of things related to boondocking: what is boondocking, why we boondock, the amount of public lands there are, how RVers boondock, how long the Toaster can boondock for, and what we look for in boondock spots. I also briefly talked about how we find boondock sites, but I want to go into more detail in this post.

Finding boondock sites isn’t hard nowadays thanks to the popularity of RV/van living, people’s desire for free overnight stays and being closer to nature, better cell signal, and an increase in remote jobs. There are many websites and apps dedicated to cataloging public lands with available spaces for vehicles of all sizes to stay. I’m only going to list the ones that we use in this post.

IMPORTANT Note

Before I continue, I want to say that while sharing is caring, oversharing can, and is, ruining our public lands. Think twice before you share your boondock site with everyone on social media or your website - whether it’s its name or GPS coordinates. Frequently, boondock sites can’t handle the large amount of traffic sharing online brings - especially as living on the road gets more and more popular. Some boondock sites are surrounded by sensitive land that can easily be ruined by people who don’t respect nature or understand the Leave No Trace principles. Some boondock sites should remain between close friends or just with those who put the work into finding them the old way - map and scouting.

Besides, sharing can backfire on you when you try to come back to an area only to find what once was a secret now crowded with a sea of rigs. And sometimes places close down due to the damages that have occurred from too much traffic and human impact.

Please share responsibly.

Our first and biggest concern when it comes to boondocking is whether or not we’ll find a spot that will fit the Toaster (luckily, this is rarely an issue). It sucks to arrive somewhere late in the day to find the spot we were hoping to stay isn’t going to work. The total length of the truck and Toaster is ~39 ft (being a fifth-wheel, the Toaster overlaps the truck bed). But we don’t need a site that length because the truck can be at an angle to park the Toaster, and then we unhitch and leave only the Toaster parked in the spot. But it does mean we need a smaller spot nearby to park the truck.

Our second concern is whether we can get enough sunlight to charge our solar panels. This isn’t an issue if we’re staying in a spot just overnight. And in reality, depending on how fully charged our batteries are, we can go a few days without sun (it was ~3 days when we had lead-acid batteries and we haven’t had the chance to test it out with our lithium batteries). But ideally, we want to be in a spot that lets us charge our batteries because when it comes to living in a rig powered totally by sola, we have to think about the future and how much sunlight we’ll get later on. When it comes to the sun, it’s not just about how much tree coverage a site has but also whether the boondocking site lets us park with our solar panels facing south. Solar panels get the maximum hours of sunlight when they are faced south and the second-best direction is anything closest to south. If you want to get more tips on parking your rig for solar, read our The Art of Solar Parking post.

Now, let’s talk about how we find boondock sites:

1. CAMPENDIUM

Campendium is our first and foremost used website to find boondock sites. I randomly come across this website sometime during the second month we were on the road and have used it ever since.

Leigh and Brian of Aluminarium are the people who started Campendium. They work hard to provide this great website with its extensive list of RV parks, campgrounds, and boondock sites. Campendium is extremely user-friendly and has a clean interface.

Here’s why we always go to Campendium first:

• Unlike a lot of review-based websites, Campendium attracts high quality reviews that are full of important and useful details such as: what the road condition are to the site; site quality; what size rigs will fit; and quality of cell service.

• Most RV sites in their database include photos. This gives us a visual idea of what the place looks like and allows us to gather additional information that isn’t necessarily included in the written review – like how much tree coverage there is.

• We even find the sites that are listed on Campendium but don’t have reviews to be useful. Those sites give us a potential place to boondock and we can research more online and via maps.

2. FreeCampsites.net

If Campendium doesn’t work out or we want more options, we head over to Free Campsites. While there’s a little bit of an overlap in available free sites between that and Campendium, we’ve found places that aren’t listed on Campendium.

What we like about Free Campsites, which is also the same thing we don’t like about it, is that the reviews aren’t always submitted by RVers. The upside to that is it opens up more options of places to boondock, but the downside is that we’re not sure if we’ll fit in those sites. While some of the reviews on Free Campsite are very detailed, others lack critical information that we search for.

After several months of not visiting Free Campsites, I went back and saw they’ve added a section about cell service availability to each site. Sweet!

3. iOverlander

iOverlander was our go-to app to find boondock sites while we were in Canada – mainly Yukon – last summer. Overlanders are known to head off the beaten path.

The boondock sites posted on iOverlander are entered by travelers in truck campers, unimogs, vans, and other shorter vehicles. This creates a similar issue as with Free Campsites where we’re not always sure the Toaster can fit – most of the time we can’t. But if we can’t find any other potential sites, we’re willing to scout these out (in person or via map) to see if it’ll work for us.

The site details aren’t great in this app, but a little something is better than nothing, and sometimes a photo or two are available. One of the downsides of the app is that it doesn’t let you save places you find in the app for future use.

4. Ultimate Campgrounds

Ultimate Campgrounds has an app dedicated to the U.S. and one for Canada. In addition to iOverlander, we used Ultimate Campground Canada the most while we were in Canada. This app, the U.S. and Canada version, has thousands of campgrounds listed and a lot of filter choices to help narrow down the kind of sites users are looking for. As an RVer, the main thing to keep in mind when using Ultimate Campgrounds is that it was created for users of all kinds: car campers, RVers, backpackers, boaters, etc. The app doesn’t have an extensive list of boondock sites, but we have found established campgrounds that will fit RVs and are free to use.

The main downside is the app doesn’t have a comment/review section for campsites. The vital information for sites are mentioned in the main description, but extra information that users sometimes add aren’t available – such as cell signal strength, max RV length, etc. Once in a while photos are available for those some of the campsites. I wrote a review of Ultimate Campgrounds in this post. 

5. The Frugal Shunpiker’s Guide

(As of October 2022, she’s stopped selling these ebooks.)

Marianne is the author of six The Frugal Shunpiker’s Guide: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, California, and Colorado. We use her e-books and find them to be fabulous! She provides extremely detailed information about boondock sites along with scenic photos of the area, descriptions, directions, and GPS coordinates. She has personally been to all these sites during the 12 years she traveled and includes what size RVs can fit into each one.

What I enjoy the most about her books is that she includes local information about the areas such as hiking recommendations with GPS coordinates, scenic sights to check out, closest place for services and supplies, RV dumps, tidbits and historical facts, etc. Reading her books feel like reading an email a friend has sent about a place they’ve recently been.

6. Google Maps

We always turn to Google satellite maps when we find boondock sites we want to check out but the website we find it on doesn’t provide enough information to make us feel confident.

More and more we are turning to Google maps to look for potential boondock sites.

But we don’t rely our finds just from that because there other things to consider – mainly making sure the place we found is definitely on public lands. Once that’s determined, we call the local office that oversees the land and double check that boondocking (the term “dispersed camping” is more commonly used with federal land management offices) is allowed. We also find out from the office what the local rules are for the area - such as max number of days allowed to stay, are campfires allowed, etc. And talking to a person over the phone gives us a great opportunity to find out about current road conditions and if they have suggestions for other spots that are good for RVs.

Nina of Wheeling It wrote a great series on boondocking for newbies including on how to find dispersed sites on public land from scratch if you’re interested.

7. Websites/Instagram

Some bloggers will openly share their boondock sites. I don’t because of the negative impact I’ve seen it have. So many places have been damaged because it’s received too many overnight visitors who don’t park in established sites, don’t properly bury their human waste, don’t properly and completely put out campfires, and the list goes on. I’ll share boondock sites with close friends who I know will treat the land with respect. I’ve altogether stopped tagging my Instagram photos. But there are other bloggers out there who choose to continue to share, and whose websites we’ve used once or twice:

• Wheeling It: Nina does a great job providing detailed reviews of places her and her husband have stayed.

• Watsons Wander: Amanda and Tim share information on the places they’ve stayed – free or paid.

• @boondockinglife: I just recently came across Boondockinglife’s Instagram account and started following him because he lists the GPS coordinates (and some info) of the places he’s staying in his photos. I haven’t had to chance to use any of the GPS coordinates since we’re back east right now, but I’ve saved a few spots that look super nice.

Went for a walk around the lake with the pup and new camera. This is what Scott Reservoir Campground looks like from the other side. More info in the previous post. (34.175190, -109.960484)

A post shared by Jacob Kneeshaw (@boondockinglife) on May 18, 2017 at 8:09am PDT

8. ROAD FRIENDS

Sorry, but you can't Google or purchase this one. Once you've been on the road for awhile, you'll meet other full-time travelers who become friends either instantly, over time, or sometimes never.

There are a great many things about having road friends, but one of them is that you share boondock site information with one another. Our most recent example is a place in Utah. On our own, it might have taken us ages before we found out about this place. But our friends Road It Up were aware of this climbing area and they invited us to hang out with them there back in April. Through them we learned about some fabulous boondock sites. 

Sometimes we (us and the friends) share that information publicly and other times we keep it quiet amongst friends.

Here are some additional tools that can be used to find boondocking sites, but we haven't used them much or at all:

• National Forest Motor Vehicle Maps: Detailed motor vehicle use maps are available for specific ranger districts at local ranger stations. These maps show all the roads in the forest district, what kind of vehicles are allowed, seasonal opening dates, amenities available in the area, and usually areas that allow dispersed camping - along with camping requirements. Topo features are not shown on the maps.

• Benchmark Maps: Very detailed paper atlases focused on roads and recreation area. Digital versions of these maps are available via three different apps.

• Topozone: Free USGS topo maps for the US with additional layers that can be added on like satellite and US forest service topo.

• Coverage?: Directly overlay and compare cellular carrier coverage maps so help you find boondocking sites that also have cell signal. This app is created by full-time nomads, Techomadia.

I hope this helps you get started boondocking! Holler if you have any questions or want to share a source that you really like to find boondock sites.

Want to try RVing?

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1. Choose A Mail Forwarding Service Company

You’ll want to choose a mailing service company who will receive your mail for you. It doesn’t have to be in the same state as your new domicile, but it could save you a lot of confusion, mistakes, and questions in the future. We chose to find a mail forwarding company in Nevada. During my research, I came across two cities/towns that have mailing service companies: Las Vegas and Pahrump (I didn’t look into Reno).

Turns out a lot of full-time RVers hang out in Pahrump, but the two companies in Pahrump, JB Mailroom and Mail, Messages & More, didn’t meet our needs. They were pricier than the company we chose, required us to be more hands-on, and charged more to scan mail for us (a service we knew we’d use more than actually forwarding our mail to us). 

We ended up with Inc. Paradise out of all the mailing services in Las Vegas because their price was the best, they have a web portal and a phone app, and their scanning prices were good. Honestly, their mail-forwarding customer service could be a lot better (they’ve frequently forwarded our mail to the incorrect location). But because we don’t have our mail forwarded very often (just 2 - 3 times a year), I’m OK putting up with their mistakes for the price they charge. For more details on their services, check out Why We Chose Nevada As Our Domicile State.

2. Choose A Physical Address

Unless you’re going to use a friend’s or relative’s Nevada address, you’re going to have to figure out a physical address to use with proof that you “live” there. Unfortunately, your address from the mail forwarding company isn’t going to work. It’ll come up as a business address in the DMV’s system. Luckily for RVers, Nevada DMV will accept a receipt for a 30-day stay at an RV park (or hotel) as documentation of your physical residence.

The RV park’s address will be printed on your new driver’s license, but you can also specify a separate mailing address (even out of state) so nothing ever gets sent to the RV park. Your new driver’s license will be mailed to the mailing address. Note: if you give them a temporary mailing address just to receive your new license (as we did), you will need to change it with the DMV after receiving your driver’s license.

We ended up choosing West Wendover KOA to establish our residential address for several reasons:

• West Wendover is the closest city to where we were going to be (Utah and Idaho) during this process. We didn’t want to drive all the way down to Las Vegas.

• Elko County (the county West Wendover is in) has lower vehicle insurance rates than Las Vegas (Clark County).

• Elko County doesn’t require vehicle inspections, which makes it easier to renew our vehicle registrations. Currently, only the urban areas of Clark County and Washoe County (Reno) require vehicle inspections.

• West Wendover KOA was the cheapest RV park (for monthly rates) I could find in northeastern Nevada (RV parks in this part of Nevada are on the sparse side).

• In addition to being cheap, the KOA was willing to let me pay over the phone and not show up the day I wanted to start my month-long stay. This was a bonus because we didn’t want to actually have to stay a month at an RV park in Nevada. Our plan was to book a month just so we’d have the receipt, but only show up whenever we wanted to. West Wendover KOA was the only park that was OK with us coming and going whenever we wanted (we spent a total of 10 nights there and the rest of the time in Utah), and didn’t require me to show up in person to check-in (so we started paying for our RV reservation before we actually got there just to shorten the waiting game – see bullet below).

• You can only apply for your Nevada driver’s license after your 30-day stay has ended.

• It cost us $330/month to stay at the West Wendover KOA plus a $50 deposit for electricity (you get refunded whatever amount isn’t applied to your electric bill). Long-term RVers (like us) have to establish their own internet service, if they want it – the park’s WiFi is not made available.

• Note: West Wendover itself doesn’t have a DMV office, the closest one is in Elko (~100 miles away).

3. Switch Your Vehicle Insurance 

You will need to bring proof of Nevada insurance to the DMV. The insurance card needs to have your new physical address (RV park in our case). The DMV website said that they’ll accept a printed-out copy of the card (in case you can’t receive the original one the insurance company mails to you).

Our truck was insured with Erie Insurance while we were North Carolina residents, but unfortunately, they don’t underwrite in Nevada. We ended up going with Liberty Mutual for an annual rate of $400 (includes comp and collision). Yes, our truck is old (it’s a 1999). This premium is still better than what we had in North Carolina.

For the Toaster, we stayed with Nationwide. We don’t have an attachment to Nationwide; they just had the best price out of the companies I called. But it’s probably time to shop again.

Since the Toaster is a tow-behind trailer, the DMV didn’t ask to see our insurance for it.

4. Additional Proof of Residency 

Since the RV park receipt only had my name on it and the truck insurance card only has my name on the card (the truck is registered under my name), it meant Jerud needed two separate forms of proof of residency.

For one, he used DMV 005 Certification of Nevada Residency: Jerud filled this out with me signing as the “Second Resident Attesting to Nevada Residency” (since I would become a Nevada resident before he did – by minutes).

We were prepared to have to give the DMV another proof of residency which would be “a record, receipt or bill requesting payment” (dated within 60 days) from the doctor’s office that Jerud recently had an appointment with, but our DMV agent accepted the RV park receipt. I don’t know if she was being nice to us or what.

Here is the full list of documents that the DMV will accept as proof of residency.

5. Print and Fill Out Form

There’s only one form you need to print and fill out ahead of time, and it’s the Application for Vehicle Registration. You’ll need a copy of this form for all vehicles you’re registering in the state (including tow-behinds).  

If you browse the DMV website, you may come across the Vehicle Inspection Certificate. This is a VIN inspection form. We found out that you do not need to print this out beforehand. The DMV will print it out after they’ve checked your vehicles and entered the information themselves.

A VIN check will need to happen before you go to the DMV. In Elko, the VIN inspection station is behind the DMV (really behind the highway patrol building). No need to make an appointment; they are open Monday – Friday from 8 AM – 5 PM. The inspection station will also need to look at your vehicle titles.

You may also come across the Certificate of Inspection and Affidavit of Trailer Construction form while on the Nevada DMV website. This form is only needed to re-register a vehicle that’s been given a salvage title.

6. Bring Necessary Forms of Identification

You’ll need to bring one document that has your name and birth date on it proving your identity (we brought our passports) and your social security card. If you’ve changed your name, then you need to bring proof of all name changes in addition. This is all required whether you get a Real ID license or standard license. Many states are starting to issue Real ID licenses (supposedly by 2020 the federal government will require all driver’s licenses and IDs to be Real ID compliant). A Real ID license will allow you to board a plane (only domestic flights) and enter secure federal facilities and military bases.

Your passport isn’t required as a form of identification, but if you have one I’d suggest bringing it because it makes the process a lot easier.

Visit the DMV website for a full explanation of proof of identity.

7. Bring Your Current Driver’s License

The Nevada DMV will need your current driver’s license in order to give you a Nevada one. They will hole-punch “VOID” in it and then hand it back to you. Since your new Nevada license will be mailed to you in about two weeks, in the meanwhile you’ll need to keep your current driver’s license along with a paper printout that acts as your temporary Nevada driver’s license. 

Your new Nevada driver’s license is valid for 8 years! When it’s time to renew, you may have the option to renew online or by mail. Visit this page for details.

8. Bring Vehicle Title 

Remember to bring the title for all the vehicles you are registering in Nevada. The inspection station will also need to see this.

The state of Nevada is not a “retitling state”. This means that after you’ve registered your vehicles in Nevada, you will keep your original vehicle titles. You won’t get new ones from Nevada.

9. Bring Your Vehicle Registration

The DMV will need to see your vehicles are currently registered. It turns out that we had forgotten to renew the registration on our truck in NC. It wasn’t a problem at the Nevada DMV; we just had to pay a late fee (it was only $18 for a month’s late fee).

10. Bring Your License Plate

The Nevada DMV will take your current license plate in order to give you a Nevada plate. You’ll actually get two for vehicles and motorhomes – Nevada Is one of those “plates on the front” states.

The DMV agent handed us filled-out forms for “New Nevada Resident Plate, Registration Certificate Surrender and Title Statement” and told us we had to mail this to the NC DMV so they knew the Nevada DMV had taken our NC license plates. Make sure you contact your previous DMV to find out where the forms need to be mailed to and what other forms need to accompany the NV DMV one. This is also how you get the pro-rated portion of your previous state’s vehicle registration fees refunded to you.

We can renew our Nevada license plate online annually. For the Toaster, we had the option to pay for either one or three-year registration. We chose the three-year option.

11. Form of Payment

The Nevada DMV accepts cash, checks and all credit cards except American Express.

12. Form To Fill Out At the DMV

When you arrive at the DMV, you will need to look for the yellow form named “Application for Driving Privileges or ID Card” and fill that out.

13. Mailing Address

The DMV can mail your driver’s license and voter registration card to a separate address than your physical address (which is the address that’s on your Nevada driver’s license). It will take about 10 days before it all gets mailed out. So be ready with a mailing address.

As I mentioned above, if you’re like us and gave them a temporary mailing address, you’ll need to contact the DMV and County Clerk after receiving your driver’s license and voter registration card to change that address. Otherwise, all future DMV mail will go there.

To change your mailing address with the DMV, you can print and mail the “Change of Address Notification by Mail” form: do it online, or go by the DMV. There is a $4.50 fee to do this.

 To change your mailing address with the Secretary of State (for voting), you will have to call the county clerk that you’re registered in.

14. DMV Tests

Unless you have 12+ points on your driver’s license or don’t have a current driver’s license, you won’t need to take a written or driving test. The only test required at the DMV is a vision test.

DMV Fee Breakdown

We got our Nevada driver’s license and registered our vehicles on November 5, 2018 and this is what we paid: 

• Driver’s license: $42.25 (per person)

• Truck’s annual registration: $95.66

• Basic government service tax – Elko: $41.16 for the truck

• Travel trailer registration: $123 for three years (it would’ve been $75 for one year)

• Basic government service tax – Elko: $123 for the RV

• Additional fees: There’s a bunch of miscellaneous fees (all just a few dollars)

Our total to register the truck and trailer, and to get both our driver’s licenses was $406.91

The process at the Nevada DMV office went very smoothly. Tip: if there’s a wait at the DMV (we had one on a Monday morning), go inside to get a spot “in line” (you enter your cell phone number and then can leave), and then go get the VIN inspection done. It took about an hour to get both our driver licenses and the two vehicles registered.

Good luck in your domicile change!

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This post is about why we chose Nevada as our domicile state. If you’re already familiar with what a “domicile” is and what makes a state RV-friendly, skip down to “Why We Chose Nevada”.   

What Is “Domicile”? 

Domicile is defined as treating a specific place as your permanent home. The government requires everyone have a legal domicile. Your home state is where you will file your taxes, register to vote, get your driver’s license, register your vehicles, and get your health insurance. The word “residency” gets used interchangeably with “domicile”.

Our domicile was in North Carolina until recently. We were already established as North Carolina residents and all we did when we hit the road was change our mailing address to Jerud’s mom’s (who also lived in Asheville). She handled all of our mail for us. This made our roadlife transition easier and we kept it this way until recently. 

When Jerud’s mom moved out of North Carolina earlier this year, Jerud and I decided it was time to think about where our domicile would be. We could’ve kept claiming North Carolina as our domicile. But the main reason we didn’t is that we don’t make money in the state of North Carolina so why would we continue paying income tax to the state? For example: when we worked in Washington state (who doesn’t have income tax) we still had to pay income tax on the money we made in Washington to North Carolina because that’s where our domicile was.

The burden is on you to show that you’ve moved to another state. North Carolina was happy to continue collecting income taxes from us until we told it otherwise.

What Makes A State RV-Friendly?

South Dakota, Texas, and Florida are widely considered RV-friendly states. I’ll quickly list what makes them RV-friendly (each point below doesn’t necessarily apply to all three states):

• No state income tax

• Low to mid-range vehicle insurance

• Affordable vehicle registration

• Convenient or no vehicle inspection

• Reasonable health care plans (at least that used to be the case)

• Has mail forwarding companies to handle your mail

• Easy to establish domicile (for example, you can claim Nevada as your domicile state after presenting a receipt with a 30-day stay in an RV park or hotel)

• Doesn’t require returning in-person to renew the license

• Escapees RV Club is established in all three states and as a member, you can use their physical address to establish domicile. In addition, they offer mail forwarding services.

Why We Chose Nevada

So, if there are already three established RV-friendly states, why didn’t we just go with one of those? The main reason was we didn’t want to have to drive to any of them, even after we’d established our domicile there.

• Florida is too far (we plan to stay west of the Mississippi for a long time)

• Texas isn’t our thing (unlike a lot of people, we don’t choose to winter in Texas)

• And South Dakota is kind of out of the way and has really, really cold winters (limiting what months we would want to go).

Out of those three states, South Dakota was really the only real contender for us. It’s closer to drive to than Texas and Florida, and it only requires you to return to the state for one night every 5 years. But for us, Nevada still came out on top mainly because of health insurance. Health insurance costs are a lot lower than South Dakota, and Nevada offers PPO plans while South Dakota only offers HMO plans under the affordable care act. (This is no longer true, see below for more info.)

Here are additional reasons why we chose Nevada:

•  It is very “central” to most of the states we spend time in or want to hang out in, so coming back is easy.

• It has no income tax or dividend tax.

• (I originally wrote that Nevada doesn’t have property tax, but I was wrong. A reader corrected me and here’s the property tax information.)

• Although auto insurance is on the high side when compared to other states, outside Clark and Washoe counties (Las Vegas and Reno) can be quite low. Insurance is high because Nevada is a “24 hour state” (serves alcohol 24-hours) and a mining state. But the RV park we stayed at and used to establish our domicile was in Elko County, which has low vehicle insurance rates. We saved close to $200 by switching auto insurance from North Carolina to Nevada.

• Nevada bases vehicle registration costs on the new MSRP for the vehicle, then depreciates that value according to the vehicle’s age. So for a newer vehicle, registration costs aren’t as low as SD/FL/TX, but we’re OK with that because our truck and RV are almost 20 years old and were “fully depreciated” according to the DMV. I think it’s the higher registration costs for new / high-value rigs that cause Nevada to not be considered an “RV friendly state”.

• Update: I had originally written that health insurance costs in Nevada are on the low side (still true) and that the Affordable Care marketplace offers PPOs. This is incorrect. When we went on the marketplace to sign up for our 2019 health insurance, there were no PPO plans available to us. As of 2019, South Dakota, Florida, and Texas also no longer offer PPO plans on the marketplace. PPO insurance plans are still available off the marketplace, but the costs will be high. HMO plans aren’t as attractive to us despite having cheaper and lower deductibles, because they are only valid at in-network facilities, which typically are only in the state you’re domiciled in. Since we live on the road, the reality is that we’ll rarely go to an in-network facility. PPO plans are more expensive and have higher deductibles, but they do offer (reduced) coverage outside the network.

• The winters can be mild (example: Las Vegas) if we ever need to come back for whatever reason during the winter.

• There was a mail forwarding service in Nevada that could handle our mail for a good price. While it’s not necessary to have a mail forwarding service in the same state as your domicile, it does make things a bit easier. After contacting many mail services, we signed up with Inc. Paradise, located in Las Vegas.

INC. PARADISE SERVICES

• Only $99/year for a mailbox that can receive mail for up to three people

• Electronically savvy. They will notify you to let know who you’ve gotten mail from and easily let you choose to scan, mail forward, or trash it.

• Prices to scan is affordable ($1 for 1-10 pages)

• While their mail forwarding costs is a bit expensive ($5.50 plus postage), we knew we wouldn’t have them forward much.

• Will hold onto our mail for extended period of time

• Can also provide “registered agent” services (additional cost) if you intend to form a company in Nevada

Jerud compared 43 states regarding income/dividend/property taxes, vehicle registration costs, health insurance, and auto insurance and Nevada came out to be the third-cheapest state (for us). Since it was also the closest state for us to get to and its domicile requirements were fairly easy, Nevada it is!

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We met Em and Micah in one of the Great Sand Dunes National Monument parking lots. Like us, they had also just backpacked out of the dunes after spending the night. We chatted for a while; they’re both traveling nurses who live in their van when they’re not on a job. A week or so after meeting them, Em sent me a text about Jordan Hot Springs. They had just come back from there and thought we’d really enjoy it – and dogs are allowed on the trails!

I googled Jordan Hot Springs and found a bunch of information on the hike. Turns out it’s a really popular hot spring (and it can get crazy busy over weekends and spring break – avoid spring break like the plague). Jordan Hot Springs is located in Gila Wilderness in the southwestern part of the state (the nearest town is Silver City). The trailhead for Jordan Hot Springs is about a mile from Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Since it’s a far drive out to both places, I’d recommend maximizing your trip by visiting the national monument (if you haven’t already) and backpacking out to the hot spring. Obviously, Gila National Forest offers a whole bunch of additional trails that can be explored.

Though I had already learned a bunch online, we also stopped at the Gila Interagency Visitor Center to get additional information (it’s about two miles from the national monument). I like talking to rangers who can sometimes provide more up-to-date info and useful personal insight. Also, I like talking to them specifically about the route. This map (photo below) was displayed on a bulletin board outside the visitor center of the numerous hikes available near the visitor center.

As you can see on the map, there are a few different ways to backpack to Jordan Hot Springs (the most northern tip on the map). Jerud and I opted for hike #5 on the way in and hike #3 on the way out.

Hike #5 is known as “Little Bear Canyon to Jordan Hot Springs”. We chose this route because the trailhead (TJ Corral) was a mile from where we had parked the Toaster (at the Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument parking lot). Side note: There are two campgrounds for tent camping: Lower and Upper Scorpion Campground. Smaller rigs can fit in the parking area. The ranger at the visitor center had told us that we could stay overnight in any of the parking lots. We had chosen the parking lot for Gila Cliff Dwelling because it was a lot larger. This worked out because we were there during mid-week and it wasn’t busy. Please be considerate of other visitors if you plan to park in one of the parking lots.

It’s a 7-mile hike from TJ Corral trailhead to the spring with about 630 feet of elevation gain. It’s not a difficult hike at all and you get to walk through Little Bear Canyon which is really cool. Depending on what time of year you go, the water level in the canyon will vary. There was just a trickle running through the canyon when we went. We didn’t even get our feet wet. But that doesn’t last long. Where Little Bear Canyon intersects with the Middle Fork of Gila River is the start of the river crossings – about 15 of them. From this intersection you’ll follow the Gila River upstream for about 2.5 miles (for some reason it felt like a long 2.5 miles on the way in). You’ll know when you’re close to the hot spring because you’ll cross the Gila River and it’ll feel warm near a stream that’s flowing into the river. Follow that warm stream and it’ll lead you to the hot spring (a steep short hike up in the woods on the northeast, side of the canyon).

There are numerous campsites starting at the intersection of Little Bear Canyon and Gila River all the way to the hot spring (and past it). We lucked out big time because it wasn’t crowded at all when we arrived. There were two people already there, but they soon disappeared after an hour or so. Two other people showed up but also left after 30 minutes. We ended up having the hot spring to ourselves the remainder of the time we were there. That also meant the two campsites right above the hot spring were available, which is where we ended up staying. I wouldn’t recommend staying at those campsites at all during busy times. You’ll never get any privacy being that close to the springs and the sites themselves aren’t great (not particularly flat or large). Camping here also means having to hike a bit to find a place to dig a cat hole. Leave No Trace tip: Do not pee/poop in this camping area. It’s so heavily used by people and close to the hot spring. Remember, you should pee/poop at least 200 ft. away from a water source (this includes the river, and the hot spring), and pack out your toilet paper. It’s actually really hard to find a good area that’s far enough from water and campsites to dig a cat hole. We had to cross the river and go into the woods to find an appropriate spot. Honestly, now that I’ve been there, I think it’s smarter to bring your own poop bag and carry your waste back out with you because of the amount of traffic the spring receives and lack of appropriate places for bathroom use. I wouldn’t be surprised if the forest service makes poop bags mandatory in the future.

SIDE STORY

About the two people who were already at the hot spring when we arrived – we never talked to them besides a “hi”. But two days later when we were leaving the area, after making a side trip to paddle Lake Roberts, we saw two hitchhikers on the side of Hwy 152. Since there are a lot of Continental Divide Trail thru-hikers in this area, we had been making a point to pick hitch-hikers up. So, we found a spot to turn the Toaster around and approached them. Turned out it was the same two people from the hot spring!  

We learned that Raven and Freebird (their trail names) are perpetual hikers. They’ve thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail (AT), Continental Divide Trail (CDT), Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and other lesser-known trails over the last several years. Everything they own is in their backpacks and they are passionate about their nomadic lifestyle. And (I found this super cool), they lived in a cave for several months in Moab, UT (it was like a small community that lived in this cave).

Jordan Hot Spring was the first hot spring we’ve ever backpacked to and it was beautiful! It’s tucked under a canopy of trees. The water is crystal clear and the bottom is covered in small pebbles. Unlike some hot springs, moving around doesn’t churn up any gunk. The downside is that the spring isn’t steaming hot (some say it’s around 90 degrees). Also, there are warnings that the springs contain bacteria that may cause meningitis if it comes in contact with your mucus membranes. This means - don’t put your head in the water.

We only stayed one night. In the morning we decided to hike out another way since we wanted to see more of the area. We opted to take the West Fork Loop (hike #3 on the map), which would add about 10 additional miles. To get to where West Fork Loop and Little Bear Canyon intersects meant hiking out ¾ of the way we came in. But the hike would end right in the Gila Cliff Dwelling parking lot where the Toaster was parked.

I hate to say it, but that route ended up not being worth it. The views at the ridge were good, but the rest of the hike didn’t have much of one. Also, be prepared for about a 4 mile straight up section and then a 3 mile straight down section. That was tiring, but not horrible. The worst was the last two miles where we had a hard time finding the trail (unlike the rest of this trip), and hiked in sand and full sun.  

In hindsight, we should’ve done the Little Bear Canyon/Middle Fork Loop (hike #5 and #6 on the map). That would’ve been a 11-mile loop, including a 2 mile road walk back to the Toaster. But I’ve heard that the Middle Fork section of the Gila River is stunning. Lots of river crossings in that section too. I can’t remember why we didn’t choose that route.

Overall our backpack trip to Jordan Hot Spring was superb! Have fun, follow Leave No Trace principles and best of luck finding the least busy time to go!

Leave No Trace principles

            Plan ahead and prepare

            Travel and camp on durable surfaces

            Dispose of waste properly

            Leave what you find

            Minimize campfire impact (be careful with fire)

            Respect wildlife

            Be considerate of other visitors

TIPs

• I actually wouldn’t recommend wearing Chaco or Keen sandals for the river crossings. The trails are really sandy in that section of the hike. That’s what we did on the way in and both our feet were miserable. The mixture of wet feet and sand screams “blister” and “hot spots”! On the way out, we both kept our Salomon trail runners (Jerud’s / mine) on. Wear wool socks (wool will keep your wet feet feeling warmer than other material) and then rinse out your shoes and socks after the last river crossing. Or bring an extra pair of socks to change into.

• Remember to wash your cookware and dishes away from water sources. Collect water and wash your cookware at least 300 feet away from water. Pack out the leftover food bits that don’t get eaten or bury it.

• The elevation here is around 6,000 feet. Bring extra layers because the nights can get chilly.

We were here May 16 - 17, 2018.

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I’ve been wanting to make my own jewelry for a while, but this particular style – patinaed, salvaged bullet casings – all started with boondocking. We are constantly finding used bullet casings embedded in the ground on the public lands we boondock on. Jerud and I were already cleaning up trashed sites we’d come across, so picking up micro trash wasn’t a big deal.

Finding littered bullet casings on public lands was something new to me. I never came across any in all the years I lived in western North Carolina. But they’re everywhere in the forests out west.

So, the wheels started turning after picking up tons of these mindlessly left behind bullet casings. One of my favorite pieces of jewelry (until I lost it) was a necklace with an etched bullet casing pendant. I’m a big fan of repurposing things, so combining it with my love for unique jewelry and patina just made sense. Viridian Range is another creative outlet for me, while maybe making a little extra cash along the way.

The earrings are all handcrafted from inside the Toaster: from the patina process to the ear wires. I include the GPS coordinates of where the bullet casings were found when I mail them to their new homes.

The bullet casings don’t hold any significance aside from the concept of “make art not trash”. I’m not a fan of guns. So, it’s ok if you aren’t either because I’m not glorifying or beautifying guns. Instead, these earrings are an effort to bring awareness to the loveliness of repurposing things, minimizing trash, and practicing leave no trace on our public lands.

All my earrings are available for sale at my Etsy shop and on Live Small Ride Free. Thank you for checking it out!

Roadlife is one of the best things we’ve done for Tybee and Tyki. Not only do we get to spend so much more time together, but they’ve gotten to experience so many incredible outdoor places. They get to have the same freedom as we do!

Understandably, there are a lot of questions that come up when people find out we live on the road in 200 sq. ft. with two dogs. Below are answers to some of those questions.

How to keep the inside of the rig clean and mud-free?

Having a towel by the door is key! When the towel is laid out on the floor mat, Tybee and Tyki know to stand on it and let us wipe their feet off.

To keep our bed clean when T & t sleep with us, we cover it with an old bedsheet to collect any fur and dirt that comes off of them.

Our mini broom and dustpan is wonderful to have so we can quickly sweep up any dirt that gets tracked in. But the best thing ever is our small shop-vac. Although we recently got a cordless handheld vacuum that makes cleaning up super easy and convenient. All this helps keep me sane.

How do you visit national parks with dogs?

National parks are known for their restrictive rules regarding dogs. Dogs are only allowed in developed areas (roads, parking lots, and some picnic areas and campgrounds). But this doesn’t mean we don’t visit national parks, it just means we have to plan our visits around Tybee and Tyki. We also accept that we won’t be able to explore the parks as thoroughly as we would otherwise.

When logistics and the weather allow it, we leave T & t in the Toaster while we visit national parks. If we can’t leave them in the rig, then we’ll head to the park super early while it’s still cool, park under shade, and leave them in the truck with all the windows down and a bowl of water. We only do this is we know it won’t get hot and they are safe in there. Then we make sure to get back ASAP. And we just don’t go if it’s too hot. No national park is worth losing them!

(I know just saying that we leave our dogs unattended in our truck may automatically piss some people off. Before you leave nasty comments, know that our dogs are our everything, and their safety and happiness is the utmost importance to us. We do not cut it close; if there is any doubt the truck will stay cool enough, we don’t leave them.)

Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument actually have dog kennels available (the Carlsbad kennel has A/C). Other national parks and national monuments may also offer dog kennels, but these are the ones we have come across.

I recently learned there are actually some national parks that allow dogs on the trails:

Acadia National Park, Maine: Allows dogs on 100 miles of hiking trails, 45 miles of carriage trails, and on Isle au Haut. Full detail.

Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO: Dogs are allowed on the sand dunes and Dunes Overlook Trail. But they aren't allowed in the backcountry, along with several other places. Full detail.

North Cascade National Park, WA: Dogs are allowed only on the Pacific Crest Trail and within 50 feet of roads. Full detail.

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ: Dogs are allowed on the trails above the rim at the South Rim. Full detail.

Mammoth Cave National Park, KY: Dogs are permitted on the hiking trails but not in the caves. Full detail.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park, OH: Dogs are allowed over 110 miles of hiking trail and 20 miles of the Towpath Trail. Full detail.

Zion National Park, UT: Dogs are only allowed on the Pa’rus Trail, which is a 3.5-mile long paved trail. Full detail.

The list above is not a comprehensive list of all the national parks that allow dogs.

If you have plans to go to Canada, they do allow dogs in their national parks (visit each park website to find out the details because some trails are closed to dogs).

Do you leave the dogs alone in the RV?

The main reason why we purchased a fifth-wheel rather than a van or truck camper is because of Tybee and Tyki. We knew it would be a lot safer, temperature-wise, in a larger rig. Not to mention we reinsulated the entire rig.

Tybee was already 11 years old when we hit the road and had arthritis, so we knew she wouldn’t be able to go everywhere with us and would need a comfortable and safe place to hang out while we were gone.

So yes, we do leave the dogs alone in the rig. But we pay extreme attention to the temperatures, especially since we don’t have A/C. Here’s a post I wrote about how we keep the dogs cool and safe in an RV.

Where do the dogs sleep inside the Toaster?

Tybee and Tyki usually sleep with us on the bed (they like to sleep on each side of me causing me to feel like I’m in a coffin!). But they each have their own beds in the bedroom.

Tybee’s 4-inch memory foam bed fit perfectly at the foot of our bed, right in front of the sink. It was enough space for her to turn around and sprawl out when she wasn’t in bed with us. Tyki’s bed sits on top of the platform we made to go over the shower pan. There are nights when he chooses to sleep in that rather than with us.

How to you handle vet visits?

We handle vet visits differently with Tybee and Tyki. Being an older dog, Tybee needed vet visits frequently and that’s why she was signed up for the Banfield Pet Hospital wellness plan. Banfields are in most cities, which made it easy to find one when necessary.

With Tyki, we pick a new vet to go to whenever it’s time for his annual check-up. Oftentimes, vets offer free first-time visit deals, so we try to take advantage of those to save money.

Since we’re always visiting new vets, I keep a folder on my computer with information of the vets we’ve gone, notes from the visits, scanned copies of their records, dates of upcoming shots, and any additional important information.

Here’s an in-depth post about how we handle vet visits while living in an RV.

Where do you get dog food and how do you store it?

We used to get dog food from Amazon, but we recently realized it wasn’t really any cheaper than buying at a store, and dealing with shipping is a pain. Nowadays, we try to get food from local pet stores and hope that they carry the brand we buy.

We store the dog food in a five-gallon bucket with a separately-purchased airtight Gamma Seal lid.      

What is it like living on the road with an older dog?

Wonderful and difficult. Older dogs need and deserve more attention, and luckily living on the road allowed us to do that for Tybee. We always made sure to set her needs above ours. You can read about the specific difficulties we had in this blog post.

Was the transition to living on the road hard on the dogs?

It wasn’t for Tybee, but it was difficult for Tyki. I’ve had Tybee since she was 8 weeks old and she’s never had a bad day in her life. She’s always been super chill and adaptable.

We adopted Tyki a year before we hit the road and from what we can tell, he was abused in his previous life. The transition from a house to an RV and the lack a routine really took a toll on Tyki. I talk more about the issues Tyki faced and what we did to help him adjust in this post.

How do you socialize your dogs on the road?

Honestly, we don’t. Neither Tybee or Tyki like dog parks. Their socialization comes from friends and their dogs we’re hanging out with, and hanging out in towns.

Tybee liked everyone and was always eager to meet people. But she wasn’t a big fan of other dogs, especially as she aged and knew she wasn’t as stable on her feet. Now, high-energy dogs make her nervous. Tyki takes a while to warm up to people and dogs alike, but he’s really sweet once he does. Sadly, he’s never made a good dog friend so he’s still unsure around other dogs.

How to keep them comfortable on travel days?

Setting aside a dedicated space for your dogs to comfortably lay is key! The back portion of our truck cab is all for Tybee and Tyki. The back seats of our supercab truck aren’t full size, so we built a dog platform to give them a wide enough space to lay. On top of the dog platform is literally about 6 inches of dog beds piled on top of one another. It was enough space for both Tybee and Tyki to lay and move around. But Tyki now gets the whole space for himself since Tybee passed away.

We also removed the original truck center console and built a new one that was wider and level with the platform. This way they can walk up and hang out between us if they want.

Since travel days are typically long, we keep a Nalgene container of water and their food in a Rubbermaid container in the truck so they don’t have to wait for dinner (even if we do!).

How do you handle getting dog medicine?

For flea and heartworm (prescription required) medicine, we get it online at 1-800-Pet-Meds.

Tybee needed additional medicine like Proin (for urinary incontinence), Gabapentin (pain control), Rimadyl (anti-inflammatory), and Adequan (arthritis pain control). Those all require prescriptions. While they can be purchased at 1-800-Pet-Meds, I got them from the vet out of habit. Gabapentin is a pain med for people, so I was able to pick this up from any pharmacy, and it was cheaper than a vet.

The difficulty with prescription medicine is that vets can’t refill a prescription written by another vet in a different state. If you need a refill, you’ll have to bring your dog in to get looked at and have another prescription written. This is why I always ask to get the max number of pills at one time.

What do you do when the dogs can’t come along with you: eating out, grocery shopping, running errands, etc.?

Our options are leaving them in the Toaster (if temperatures allow it), leaving them in the truck (if the temperatures allow it, still with the windows down), or one of us hangs out with them in the truck while the other runs errands.

Tyki’s favorite place to hang out, aside from being outside and chasing chipmunks, is in his truck. He goes to it voluntarily when he’s nervous, so we know he feels safe and comfortable in there.

Where do the dogs hang out when you’re boondocking?

Tybee and Tyki are both extremely well-behaved dogs so we don’t ever worry about them. Once we’re all settled in at a boondocking site we let the dogs roam free. Tybee’s arthritis kept her close by. But Tyki wanders, always within earshot. It usually takes him a few days before he’s comfortable enough to actually be out of sight. He does his own thing and comes back throughout the day to check up on us, water up, and nap before heading back out again. Tyki tends to ignore people so we don’t worry even if we’re boondocked near other people – unless we know they don’t like dogs or have cats they let outside. And he’s always close enough that a whistle brings him home.

We don’t let him wander around outside at night, especially if we hear coyotes or other wild animals. If we do let him out at night for a potty break, we clip an LED light to his collar or use this rechargeable LED necklace so we can watch him.

There were several things we made sure of before letting him go off on his own:

• We made sure he responded well to our recall commands. This was crucial to us being comfortable letting him do anything off-leash.

• He always wears his collar with his tags on it that has our phone numbers.

• Tyki is also microchipped.

Do they ever get in the way in that small of A space?

Tybee had the tendency to lay right in the middle of the main room, which meant we had to walk around her whenever we were walking from one end of the rig to the other. But she did this in a regular house, especially in the kitchen! So we were used to it. Besides, she was allowed to do anything she wanted.

Tyki usually just sleeps in his bed when he’s inside the Toaster. Until he hears us preparing food, then he stands in the bedroom doorway waiting for vegetable butts to be tossed his way.

How do you bathe them?

Tybee needed monthly baths, Tyki not as often. We usually visit self-serve dog washes; they’re easy to find in medium to large towns. If we happen to be staying at an RV park then we’ll wash the dogs in either our indoor or outdoor shower. If we’re at a friend’s and it’s not too cold outside then we’ll use the garden hose.

Living on the road with dogs isn’t hard at all! If anything, sharing this lifestyle with Tybee and Tyki has enhanced our own experiences - as having dogs always does.

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We had it all planned out – 4 weeks in Santa Fe National Forest. A month of mountain biking, climbing, and hiking. Boondocking spots that we could move between when the 14-day limit came up were picked out. We had packages mailed to town and plans for Jerud to fly out of one of the nearby airports.

Then we pulled up to our first boondocking spot. The entrance was totally caution-taped off. Red signs with “STOP / NO ENTRY / FIRE HAZARD / FOREST ACCESS PROHIBITED” and a big X through every outdoor activity stood in the middle. There was also a notice warning there would be a $5,000 fine to anyone even going on national forest land.

Turned out the entire Santa Fe National Forest was closed because of high fire hazard from June 1 – December 31 (we arrived on June 1). Specifically because over 120 abandoned campfires were found by forest and fire officials and over 84 were over Memorial Day weekend alone. This is while there was a fire ban forest-wide. Seriously people?

And just like that, the plans we made for the next month became useless.

Figuring out alternative logistics for Jerud’s flight was going to be a pain. But the bigger problem at that moment was our packages that were being delivered to the Los Alamos post office. Tracking said a couple were already at the post office, but the rest were still a week out.

Finding an RV park or paid campground was an option, as it always is. But that cost adds up quickly at ~$20 - $40/night. One of the main ways we make this lifestyle affordable is that we boondock almost exclusively.

We headed to the post office to pick up the packages that were waiting for us. While there, we stood in a corner and lamented about our situation as we tried to figure out what to do about the packages still on enroute. The two guys working at the counter asked us what was up. We started chatting and the next thing Jerud and I knew, one of them offered us parking on his empty property, for free. Just like that.

Random acts of kindness like this don’t happen often. But when they do, it’s phenomenal.

Ted the postman grabbed a piece of scrap paper and drew us a map of where his place is. He gave us just the name of the exit, a “big tree” and the color of the house to look for. Armed with that minimal information we headed down the mesa.

We laughed at the sweet absurdity of the situation as we drove into the neighborhood asking each other if that was the large tree Ted was referring to. Eventually we came across a driveway with a chain across it, as Ted had mentioned. Leaving the Toaster parked at the entrance, we walked onto the property to scout it out.

Aside from having barely any cell signal, the next week of moochdocking worked out well. We were able to still visit Bandelier National Monument as planned, and spent some time in Los Alamos, which I surprisingly really, really liked. Ted became our personal postman and would text us when our packages arrived!

We believe in repaying people’s kindness, like Ted’s, in some way. We don’t have a lot of money, but we do have able bodies. It turned out Ted had been meaning to trim the large tree we were parked next to. So that’s what we did and it felt good to be able to do more than saying “thank you”.

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Archeologists have identified over 40 rooms in the 6 caves in Cliff Dweller Canyon. We spent an hour visiting the caves via a short one-mile loop hike from the parking lot. Visitors are able to walk through three of the caves. Aside from the main caves in Cliff Dweller Canyon, there are smaller caves scattered throughout the area. There’s a small one-room cave a quarter-mile walk from Lower Scorpion Campground, along with a large rock wall of pictographs. We also heard about a couple more caves around 3 miles up the Gila River from the cliff dwelling parking lot. Talking to the volunteer stationed in the main cave, he said he’s come across all kinds of cave dwellings during his hikes in the surrounding national forest and wilderness on his days off.

Honestly, it’s a long drive to visit Gila Cliff Dwellings for just a one-hour tour. So, I’d recommend maximizing a trip out there by hiking the other trails around the national monument. The scenery further in the woods is spectacular (we backpacked out to Jordan Hot Springs).

After finding out that any vehicles longer than 20 feet in length are strongly advised against taking hwy 15 from Silver City, we turned around (yes, we found this out after starting down hwy 15) and took hwy 35 to hwy 15. Although the detour is longer in mileage, it’s not time-wise. As the park ranger we talked to said, we probably could’ve made it up hwy 15 from Silver City, but we would’ve pissed off all the cars behind us and it would’ve taken us a lot longer. According to the ranger, the section of hwy 15 between Silver City and the hwy 35 intersection is very winding and narrow with several hairpin turns and no pull-outs.

The upside of taking hwy 35 is that it took us by Lake Roberts. Although there were “no swimming” signs, boats are allowed so we stopped on our way out for me to paddle. It’s also worth stopping at Clinton P. Anderson Wilderness Overlook to get a panoramic view of the result of the Copperas Creek volcano that occurred 30 million years ago. According to the information sign, Copperas Creek volcano may have looked something like Mt. Hood. We also saw several trailheads along hwy 35 and hwy 15.

It’s a really scenic drive up to the national monument. We spotted several potential boondocking spots, none of which at a quick glance looked big enough for the Toaster. But we weren’t in scout mode. I had called the cliff dwelling visitor center earlier and was told by a ranger that we could stay overnight in any of the parking lots there for free. Upper and Lower Scorpion campgrounds have sites for tent camping only. But the two parking lots can be used as boondocking sites, even though they’re not very big (they can fit at least 2 or 3 rigs). We stayed all four nights in the cliff dwelling trailhead parking lot. This worked out well because it was mid-week and the lot wasn’t filled up with visitor cars during the day. It was actually a wonderful place to stay because we were able to take evening hikes straight out our door, use a small swimming hole in the river behind us, and head out on our backpacking trip without having to drive the truck even once.

So if you’re planning a trip out to Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monuments, keep in mind that there’s so much more to see than just what’s inside the national monument.

TIPS

• There’s no cell signal in this section of Gila National Forest/Wilderness/National Monument starting from the “town” of Mimbres.

• There’s a ranger station along hwy 35 if you have questions about the area.

• There are two paid campgrounds (Mesa campground and Upper End campground) that flank either side of Lake Roberts.

• The entire national monument is a pack it in, pack it out park. This means there are no trash cans anywhere on the property.

• The entrance fee to visit the cliff dwellings is $5/person or $10/family. We used our America the Beautiful park pass.

• There is a fresh water fill station (free) at the Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument visitor center. The dump station there has been closed.

• There are several dog kennels at the cliff dwelling trailhead. I didn’t ask about the cost.

We visited here from May 14 - 18, 2018.

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