I love camping be it in an RV, campervan, tent, car, yurt or just out in the open. Now that I am in the 50+ category, I can say I’ve gone through a number of phases with my camping as life moves along.
The latest phase can best be described as “Electric”. Not so much out of a desire to get away from fossil fuels, but because I’ve found joy in the simple life that raw, electric power provides.
As electronics have gotten niftier and more compact, it’s easier than ever to go camping and bring along comforts. I regularly roadtrip and car camp with a refrigerator. Various forms of light are my friend after the sun has gone down. Gone are the ice coolers needing constant refill and propane lanterns with their sometimes fussy mantles.
My last wall to full adoption was cooking. Those gas stoves are probably the most common place piece of equipment going back 50, 60, 80 years. The Coleman standard has few moving parts and takes a beating.
Switching To Electricity
I recently gave away my stove and all my camping kit to my daughter after she graduated college. It seemed a fitting time to downsize my own stash and to help her make camping hopefully a regular part of life.
So that had me thinking about what to do for food. Two changes in the last few years have helped me currently forego the stove (full disclosure: I still have a JetBoil stove for backpacking):
- I gave up eating meat, chicken and pork. All things that need cooking while camping.
- I embraced the fact that I am not a picky eater and often like things cold (leftover pizza, leftover burritos, leftover almost anything, sushi, salads, etc…).
That second one really helps because now I will buy all kinds of food that work with the fridge like salads and yogurt and cheese and berries and on and on. Things that don’t ‘need’ reheating. And they are delicious.
I still love hot tea, I’ll admit. For that I have a small kettle that only draws 700W and a power pack or two that can put out that much power.
Portable Power
Those power packs are the key to this type of camping for me and they come with a cost in cash and weight. The best one I have (AlphaESS BlackBee 1000) is 100lbs and it has yet to go camping. It could power an entire trailer if need be. The next one down that I will post a review about soon is is the AlphaESS BlackBee 2000, with 2000kWh of storage and 1600W of AC output, which means it will run a rice cooker, hair dryer (I haven’t used one of those in decades) or a karaoke machine. The last one is 1000kWh and 1000W of AC output.
Those two weight 50 and 25lbs. I tend to take the BlackBee 2000 most often even though it means a lot of hefting. I love that it comes with its own charge cable that is a standard PC power cord, meaning I could replace it very easily on the road if it went missing.
On my last roadtrip to Redwood National & State Parks with my brother Daniel, I was able to charge the power pack to full at the first campground we shared. The site had power and all I need is a 110V house outlet and about 2.5 hours of time if the power pack is flat.
From there the power pack kept the fridge at a comfortable 35°F for four days without issue. I was also able to use the USB-C ports to charge my drone and laptop and Canon R5 (see the all the videos from that trip here). 2000kWh was just enough capacity for this trip.
The fridge will also run off the car with a standard 12V port (cigarette lighter as they used to be known) which means I can conserve the BlackBee 2000 while I drive. I can also charge the BlackBee while I drive but because of the size of the battery and most 12V outlets being limited to 8amps, it would take a while to power it all the way up. My best bet is to find an outlet and chill out while it charges. The skill of hunting for outlets in airports to charge a cell phone is perfectly adaptable to this task.
Keeping The Lights On
LED lanterns and headlights as cheap and plentiful these days and I love using my portable fan/light in my one-person tent to both cool off and have light to read by. More and more, the world is switching to electricity.
What if I really do want something hot? That can be an issue. On my last trip I was lucky to find my brother’s small trailer had a microwave. Using that, I had a nice, hot burrito for dinner the first night before we were without power the other three nights. Maybe a small microwave is in my future?
Or maybe an electric skillet is the best option. If you have a suggestion for one you love that needs less than 1600W of power, I’m all ears. I bought a small George Foreman Grill for $20 but have yet to use it.
Either way, Having given away all my camping kit to my daughter has been a boon for me in reevaluating how and why I camp. While lugging around a 50 pound battery is ‘one more thing’ not having to worry about keeping my photography/videography gear charged is a plus. And not having to think about cooking is also a big plus for me.
Bananas, apples, bagels and peanut butter don’t need cooking. Neither does a can of beans, when I really think about it.
Here’s to simple, cold, electric camping.