Being Frivilous...

 

Not squandering money.  This is about power management.  When we were cruising with Wild Blue, we had to keep an eye on electrical use, water use, and waste tank level... we did have a generator if the batteries got too low, but we were careful in our power use.

We rarely dry camped with previous RVs, preferring to stay where we had full hook-ups.  There is a learning curve with this RoadTrek, especially in managing power usage.  The air conditioner is the biggest power draw.  If you aren't driving to recharge the lithium batteries, you may get 6 hours (+/-) of running the a/c.  Running the heat last night, had minimal draw on the batteries (it uses propane and an electric blower).  Then, there are lights, water pump, water heater, and the various appliances: coffee maker, toaster, Wonder Oven (air fryer, bake, broil, and probably other features I don't know about), microwave, and whatever else we plug in.

That "whatever else" is our devices: two phones, two iPads, a MacBook Pro laptop, 3 cameras, AirPods, sleep earbuds, and a partridge in a pear tree.  These devices have their own internal batteries, but they all need to be recharged at some point.  We have become accustomed to using these devices everyday.  So, as we monitor our battery levels, we determine if we want to turn the inverter on and when.

This morning, the battery level was the same as when we went to bed.  Running the furnace on auto (so it would turn on and off as necessary) had almost no impact on the batteries.  Turn on that inverter and fire up the coffee maker!  And while we're at it, plug in all the devices to top them off.  The sun is up and the solar panels (300 watts total) are adding to the battery levels.  When we start the van up and head out for the day, the aux alternator (that manufacturers like to call the "under hood generator" will top off the batteries in about 30 minutes.  In the meantime, we have power to spare.  Plug in the devices while we do our morning routines.

If necessary, we could start the engine and that aux alternator would juice up the batteries - the same way that many RVs use an onboard generator.  Except, with have "silent power" with the inverter being able to run the microwave, coffee maker, induction cooktop, etc.  So even being in a campground that has "no generator use hours" (10:00pm to 8:00am), we can still run what we want.