Water, the most straight forward subject. Water is absolutely necessary more so than food. Hydration, cleaning and cooking amongst the essential uses. In general about a gallon of water per person is used per day for all of the above. Allot of water can be saved by using stream or river water to pre wash dishes, but in general a gallon is a good estimate per person, if it’s very hot assume a bit more. The easiest storage methods is plastic containers whatever size you’d like. Keep in mind water weighs about 8lb per gallon, so know how much you can move around easily and use that as ur max water storage size, also think of storage in the vehicle, its proximity to other items in the car. In my experience pulling the water out of the vehicle was the easiest, you may want a dedicated sink situation, I find myself more interested in an adaptable interior and having a dedicated sink takes that away. We are also just talking gravity fed often cold water with this cheap method. If you’re looking at having a toilet and or shower, you need a whole different settup and black,grey water storage. Having warm and automated water without using grwvity, takes power in the form of a battery. Cooking our next subject is also directly linked to this, what do you plan on cooking? Certain foods like pastas, rice, soups or stews take allot of water along with hot drinks like coffee tee can add allot of water use.

Food.

Almost equally as important as water, but far more complicated. Let’s start with what food you might bring or would bring, then storage and then power and water relation. The goal for most is to not spend lots of money, especially on food. Cooking is the cheapest way to keep costs down, but requires many more tools, space and considerations. If you don’t know how to cook at home, you’re gonna be worse at it while camping. You are essentially bringing a mobile kitchen space into the woods or wherever you may be. You need a cooking source and power, electric, propane, or fire. You need space to prep any ingredients, a table top space to prep on and have other items, storage in teh car for all these items, like dishes, spices, sauces. You can get away with a bare minimum colony easily, hotdogs and ramen, but for those of us that like good food it’s far more complex. Your fridge, freezer siuwwtion is also vital. Again, you can not bring refrigerator items if you don’t want to, but meets, cheese and cold beverages are vital. I myself use a 55qwart cooler for many reasons, first was cost, at under 100$ it is a large spade that will last up to 7 days in non extreme temps. Durring winter, it will last considerably longer. I could have gone electric but I would be spending considerably more for the same storage space. I was also camping with my gf at the time so needed to bring food for 2 people for up to a week. Using an ice chest has its downside, things can get wet inside, you can’t regulate if things are freezing or refrigerating. And just picking up ice for each trip is annoying. The only downside of electric is cost to size ratio, and of course power consumption our next topic.

Power.

I’ve done camping without any power source, I’ve used smaller batteries and now a much larger 2500 watt battery with 250 watt solar. Batteries not to long ago weren’t as large and portable as they currently are while changing layout designs for vehicles to not need wiring done with the ability to bring solar and potentially stay indefinitely in locations depending on food and water.

There are many bands of portable batteries, hackers being one of the bigger players and dependable products, while they are around 1$ a watt, they usually have sales for 40% off or more. Never buy a battery at full price and stay away from used also. There are also refurbished models available for most manufacturers and is the route I took to get my 2500 watt and 250 solar for 750$ normally priced at 2,000$. I also purchased this battery as a feature investment, I’ve used a mobile power source many times for non camping purposes.

Your battery size is based on your power consumption. I decided I wanted full tv, internet, Xbox experience on a 34 inch ultra wide monitor which is incredibly excessive, but is what we wanted. The starlink on its own takes around 150 watt per hour, and was the most used power usage on our trips. It was game changing to have internet in places we could never communicate or use the internet in, let alone play Xbox games togeather or watch a movie or tv show. Starlink is its own subject, but well worth it for this lifestyle choice with the biliary to pause your subscription and activate when you need it.

Solar is deceptively complex of a power source to charge your battery. You think you’re going to get the full 250 watts from a solar panel? Not unless you have zero shadows or clouds or obstructions at the ideal angel from the sun to the pannel. If you mount panels to your roof, you now have to camp directly where the sun is and have very little freedom of camping spots. You can carry much more solar, but bad possitioning and angle will significantly reduce solar input. Also depending on your country/state you may get little to no solar in the winter or fall. My 250 watt solar while decent in input, rarely got full input and required repositioning throughout the day all of which is incredibly annoying.

I was lucky to run across a full time overlander blm\dnr camper while in the Olympic peninsula and he gave me the ideal combination for your power. A mid size battery around 1000 to 1500 and a small generator. A 3rd to 4th cup of gas can charge up your battery all the way, allowing you to stay much longer depending on gas storage ability and overall power consumption. While the idea of solar is really cool and idea as your getting green energy, having a generator beats it almost every time in almost every way. You can get a much smaller battery, charge up your battery once a day or two for an hour or two and be able to run things like starlink all day if you’d like. It also opens doors to cooking sources, you could do a crockpot or pressure cooker, rice cooker and much more.