Where do you get water refills on road trips?

Howdy from Jackson Hole!

In 3 weeks my GF & I will take our 1st extended FWC road trip. Forest Service/National Park campgrounds will be closing up and shutting off water, winterizing for cold weather. The FWC 20 gallon water tank will need replenishing. We have zero interest in staying at RV parks, much less paying $ to stay in one simply to get a water refill. Dispersion Camping R Us.

I'm the newly proud owner of a Water Bandit water source adaptor. I also have a 4-in-1 universal sillcock key on order.

Where do you get water on the road without being sneaky?

• Ask a gas station when filling up?
• Any chance truck stops provide water as a service?
• Are there places that accept $ in exchange for water (similar to RV's paying to dump their waste tank)?

Do tell...

Thankx!!!

Short answer, all of the above.

Longer answer is it depends. Gas stations IME do depending how busy they are and how suit fearful they are.
Same for truck stops, though sometimes they have a dedicated potable station
Unthought of spots I’ve found:
-RV dumps, SOMETIMES, one here in town has a frost free potable faucet at the end of the dump lane, NOT the wash down one next to the dump
-Ranger Stations, not associated with the aforementioned RV Park or campground
-Some towns that have a lot of off grid types or no municipal system have a water station
-I’ve seen grocery and hardware stores with dispensers where you can buy bulk filtered water, byob. There’s one here at the Fred Meyer that is big enough to take a car boy sized container.

I’m personally not adverse to natural systems within reason. Though to refill 20gal, even using your Water Bandit if you can, may take awhile. A lot of people are adverse, especially of loading up a tank full and needing to go through a sanitation cycle before they load again. Let your conscious be your guide.

Good luck.

this is by far the hardest part of off grid camping

We're careful, but not too picky about where we fill the camper's tank because we keep a 5 gal container of drinking water inside. That gets refilled from 2.5 gal store bought containers.

Agree with the posts above. We have had good luck at public dump stations (like we have at some rest areas in CO) as well as at BLM/USFS ranger stations and some gas stations. We have also had luck at public parks in smaller towns - there is often a spigot for watering/maintenance use.

One additional thing we have is a small 12V water pump and a folding bucket. While the preference is to fill direct from a spigot into the the tank with our 25' hose, sometimes there is water available, but you can't get close enough to fill or it would not be cool to hook your hose up. In that case we fill our 20L folding bucket carry it back to the camper, drop the pump into the bucket (using our water bandit to attach our fill hose to the outlet of the pump) and pump it into the tank. In a pinch you can fill the bucket from a bathroom sink, pay for filtered water in a grocery store or even from natural water and then add bleach just to the bucket, not to the camper tank.

With this combination we have never had an issue finding water fairly easily, even in the winter.

Being a former desert rat from S. Cal owning/using six 5gal water jerry cans; I can't say I've ever ran dry after a two week outing.

My rule of thumb with said six jerry cans was three weeks max.

On day 22; I'm heading into the nearest town.


Now living up in the PNW with an abundance of rivers as a water source; vehicle fuel and food would be/is the limiting factor of being off grid.

But then again; I carry three 5gal fuel jerry cans and I average 30lbs overweight!

We have a lifesaver 5 gallon Jerry can that can filter 5000 gallons of water so if you're near a creek or river you can always use those sources for drinking water. Then from that I have two other five gallon jerry water cans and I fill them from the lifesaver.

I rarely need to refill on the road. Twenty gallons plus another two or three of drinking water is almost always enough. Of course that'll change once I start taking longer trips. I filter all the water going into the tank with a charcoal filter https://www.campingworld.com/flow-pur-exterior-inline-filter-57730.html#q=filter&start=51&sz=12&cgid=maintain-your-rv%2Ffresh-water%2Fwater-filtration and another 5 micron filter on the cold water side (at the sink). Another filter for hiking or desperate measures.

I'm not above asking a homeowner if I may use their hose if they're outside and look friendly.

We carry about 7 gal of fresh water at a time (7 gal of wash water, different tank, but we use this very sparingly).
With that small amount we have to refill more frequently than some, but part of that fresh supply is a 1 gal jug (easy to carry and discretely fill). Have filled at truck stops, and gas stations, just from the bathroom...ought to ask first.

In a pinch we have a base-camp water purifier from any reasonable freshwater source. Gravity water purification filter, bigger version of what we use backpacking. Time consuming, and won't work for 20 gal all that easily, but works for us.

A different approach that works for us.

We carry potable water (filtered from our home system) in 13 one gallon square grocery store bottles. This lasts Sioux and me a week or more for drinking and cooking. (I've learned the hard way to swap the bottles out annually since they do wear out.) If we can't get a safe supply of drinking water we just buy the 2.5 gallon containers and refill our gallon bottles. (We also carry a filter for emergency use.)

This tactic keeps me from worrying about the safety of the water in our 20 gallon tank and water heater so we can pretty much refill anywhere. (We also usually carry one or two 7.5 gallon containers for backup washing and showering water.)

BTW, we do travel heavy. Our 3500 Ram chassis cab has a GVWR of 11,000# and with the flatbed Grandby and all our assorted crap wet for a week or two we flirt with the GVW!

Out West Maverick Gas Stations have potable water faucets for filling RVs.....we did this in Moab...but lots of these stations out here.

What everyone else said plus , I always carry a couple of water cans and just top off the tank when needed (a little hard to lift sometimes, but you have to be tough to drive a p0p-up!

Smoke

So far
RV camps
Visitor Centers
Grocery stores
Gas Stations
Campgrounds
and a very nice old lady
All of these i just went up to and asked, offered money and filled up from a spigot.
I have a 27-30 gallon tank and i usually carry an extra five of water and fuel
i also can pump and filter out of creeks

Going to remember the Mavericks tip. None local, but we travel in their region frequently.

We use commercial potable water purchased in 1 or 2 gallon containers once we have used our stock of water from home.

For bulk water, I am leery of "potable" water systems at campgrounds and rec sites as a result of my work experience. In monitoring many of these systems for a national agency, I have seen that they rarely meet standards for potable water systems and can be contaminated, especially with E. Coli. We refill, when opportunity presents, from a trusted domestic system.

Because it can be difficult to fill bulk water tanks from the factory fill location, I installed a marine port on our bulk tank. Available at marine suppliers and Amazon for about $20, it gives me an easier port for filling the tank from containers than the original fill location. It also gives me access directly to the bulk tank for cleaning and sterilizing when needed. I find it very convenient and no longer use the original fill port.

For drinking water:

In our Grandby we don’t worry about drinking water. We use a Zero Water pitcher for cooking and drinking water needs.

Flush system once every 3 months.

Running out of water is another story (haven’t yet). Others have outlined collecting water in the wild so I won’t comment on that.

The iOverlander app is a great resource for finding public filling stations.

FowlinFleet said:

The iOverlander app is a great resource for finding public filling stations.

Click to expand...

And the more we all add to it the better it will be

If you are dispersed camping, as you say, on NF and BLM land, you can easily find creeks and rivers and streams and waterfalls where you can find clean water that you can directly filter, or simply boil if you're just making coffee. We recently finished up a 60-day trip while topping off our drinking water containers each day using an inexpensive, backpacking Sawyer water filter to eliminate any potential harmful bacteria, in otherwise clean mountain water. We experimented this year by camping primarily at, or closeby creeks off of forest service roads. We brought along a few jerry cans just in case, including a Lifesaver Expedition water jerrycan, which can quickly filter and hold up to 6 gallons of any type of water, but to our amazement never had to touch any of the jerrycans we brought along, as mountain water was all we ever needed and the Sawyer water filter was convenient and bulletproof and easy to carry on long hikes, where you can access mountain streams for nice cold refills along the way. Even if you don't have a dispersed campsite with an accessible creek you can always stop at one along the way to top off. We just backwashed the Sawyer filter once after two months of use, to clean it out and it's ready to quickly filter another 1oo gallons of water. They last, seemingly, forever. The larger Lifesaver expedition can's filter is good for 5,000 gallons before the filter needs replacement.

Rich

Howdy from Jackson Hole!

Wow! I started this thread & am super impressed by the helpful community hereabouts.

Maverik & Pilot Flying J also have apps to help us out. They're friendly to truckers, RV'ers & FWC type people needing water.