Coming from a motorcycle that gets 65mpg and tent and then moving a pop up camper (Sunlite) to go onto our F150 Ford pickup, some of the suggestions presented here are certainly for a different RV’ing lifestyle. We recently took a wonderful trip up to Canada (BC), across to the east coast, and back across the USA via a lot of parks. We lived comfortably for 6 weeks as the camper is fully self contained including a bathroom. Since I had one small 55ah auxiliary battery, electrical was a problem, especially if we camped in the same place for two nights without recharging. In my research I found small florescents and LED’s are not much more energy efficient (lumens per watt) than the cheap halogens provided in many campers by the manufacturer. Showers are incredible wasteful. We almost always took a park shower, which were usually cheap and with plenty of hot water. When we couldn’t, we heated up two quarts of water and took a sponge bath. This included washing our hair and was surprisingly satisfying, and required no huge gray water tanks pulled around by barge like RV’s. We were only 21' long (just the length of our pickup) and got about 15mpg on regular gas. What we liked most was the ability to park in a regular parking place in town, at a grocery store, and in a pinch could even go up in some parking garages (7'4" clearance). In my dreams I’d have a Sprinter which is a little roomier and gets about 25mpg. But at the higher price of diesel, and a cost of about $80,000, it would take about 50 years to pay for itself... not a wise economic choice. So for you RV’ers who want to save money and the planet, I suggest this. 1, get an economical little rig (i.e. Toyota Dolphin, small camper on a pickup, camper van, etc.) or 2. get a large RV and go to only a few places and keep it parked there a lot. For me, I keep fighting my tendency (probably common to a lot of guys) to be equipment oriented, when I should be enjoying the parks and friends. After all I can’t take it with me.
Jorg.