Getting Water on the Road

[Danjo-SKO]

I used to go camping a lot with my family in an RV and I never paid any attention to this. Maybe it t wasn’t a problem because most of the places we went had hookups and dry camping was something we did occasionally.

It’s something we all take for granted a bit, but I was on my first trip that was long enough that I ran out of water and I couldn’t find a place to hook up to a spigot.

It seems a little silly. I’m looking for ideas of how to get water on the road.

 

[Drew Bru]

After a while on the road, you get really good at noticing random spigots (look for the farm-style spigots with the lever-type handle). We've gotten water at gas stations, ranger stations, dump stations, public parks, public campgrounds as well as water machines at grocery stores. Campendium.com, RVdumpsites.net and Sanidumps.com are some pretty good places to search for dump stations and (often) potable fill water. Many private RV campgrounds will let you dump and fill for a fee.
When we were desperate for water in Moab, we bought some collapsible 5 gallon water jugs. That's been a gamechanger for the past year. Now we can tote water back to the bus from a grocery store vending machine (lots of them in Arizona for some reason) or public spigot and use the gravity fill to top off the tank. It's easier to bring the water to the bus than it is to bring the bus to the water sometimes. We use the hell out of those jugs.
People really take water for granted and it's one of those things you don't think much about.

 

[Bus'n it]

The reason there are so many water vending machines in AZ is due to the fact any water from a spigot is going to be full of calcium and lime. AKA, Serious hard water. That crap will scale up fast and ruin plumbing. The vending machines filter most of it out and people pay 25¢ a gallon. You bring your own container. When I moved here from NY and first washed my car, it was laden with white scale that had to be removed by a paint shop. Even those screw on filters will not remove all of the hard water calcium. AZ water is stored underground where it gets its minerals from.

 

[Drew Bru]

The reason there are so many water vending machines in AZ is due to the fact any water from a spigot is going to be full of calcium and lime. AKA, Serious hard water. That crap will scale up fast and ruin plumbing.

Ah, makes sense. I grew up near the Great Lakes and our water was hard water, but not that bad. I asked someone at a machine why people don't just drink tap water but didn't really get an answer...more of a shrug.

 

[musigenesis]

When we were desperate for water in Moab, we bought some collapsible 5 gallon water jugs.

I've never been able to find actual water jugs around where I live, so I've just bought gasoline jugs instead and used them only for water - which of course led to my refilling my TailGator generator with water instead of gasoline. Fortunately I realized what I had done before starting it, and I was able to turn it upside down and drain out all the water. No damage, generator still runs fine.

 

[Drew Bru]

I've never been able to find actual water jugs around where I live, so I've just bought gasoline jugs instead and used them only for water - which of course led to my refilling my TailGator generator with water instead of gasoline. Fortunately I realized what I had done before starting it, and I was able to turn it upside down and drain out all the water. No damage, generator still runs fine.

Oof. Painful lesson, at least you didn't fill your water tank with gasoline though. We got them at an outdoors store that also, conveniently, had a free water tap but they sell them at Walmart in the camping section and on Amazon too. A lot of REI type stores have them. It's nice that they're collapsible so then can be folded up and stuck in a tote bin.