What is yamping you ask? Well it’s yard camping! So we had originally planned to go yamping with a little bit of boondocking on this next road trip. Our plans had to be altered, so we’ll just be doing some yamping and camping this trip. Our new plan is to stay with family and camp in their yard for a day or two in between staying at some campgrounds. We’ll be boondocking in a way because we won’t be hooked up to anything while staying with family.

Why yamping? First and foremost, it’s a great way to visit with family and friends that are near or on the way to  your destination. You can catch up with people you may not normally be able to visit with, and that is truly a great experience!  Another bonus: it’s a great way to keep down costs of traveling!

What is boondocking? It is another name for dry camping, which means parking anywhere without any or with limited amenities. Dry camping is more describing camping without hookups at a campground, while boondocking typically means staying in a completely undeveloped area. So for this particular trip, we’ll be boondocking while yamping. 🙂 This actually works out for the best considering we’ve never dry camped, so we’ll work out all the kinks in the comfort of our family’s yard on the front and back end of our trip. When we first bought our trailer, we had all the intentions of dry camping in our driveway to work out any kinks, but got so excited in traveling that we forgot all about that whole “testing it out before getting on the road” theory.

Why boondock? It’s a great way to get out into nature, away from busy cities, towns, traffic, and crowds! Best part…it’s FREE!!

How we’ll prepare for boondocking &/or yamping: We’ll be packing more batteries, along with a charger to charge them each day should we need to. We’ll carry full water tanks instead of our typical half or a third because we’ll need all the water we can get! Since it’s starting to feel like fall, we’ll be packing extra blankets for colder nights. We have a 4k watt Powerhouse generator that has a supposed 8 hour run time at full capacity. Therefore, we’ll only be using 1 A/C instead of both. We run this generator on our pack days, but plan to test it on this trip so we can give you all a review after we get back! Also, we plan to refill the generator on travel days whenever we stop for gas.

We haven’t even been boondocking yet, but already on our boondocking dream list is:

1. More RV batteries! We’ve been told 4 is a great number! We have….1.

2. Solar Panels!!!!! We can’t wait to make our own power to save for a later time. Not to mention being able to camp in the middle of nowhere for more than a few days! Sounds AMAZING!!

Alright, let’s get this thing on the road!