We have had our camper for a few years and have taken small trips.
This fall we are traveling to Louisana. We want to drive about 8 hours a day and spend nights at rest stop or walmart
I am a little uncertain about the best way to travel that length of time and distance with food.
Can you travel and turn on gas for refrigerator to keep your food cold and frozen.
If anyone out there has any suggestions, I would love to hear from you.
I have had success using the LP on the fridge with no problems. I think you will do fine. Just make sure that when you unplug the main power before leaving home, that fridge starts and stays on for a few minutes. I did leave on a shorter(2hour) trip that I did not check. I figured the "auto" would work switching from electric to gas...it did not start right. I think I had air in the lines from having shut the gas off while parked in the driveway. Silly mistake on my part.
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Yes, leave your fridge on the "gas" mode. We took several mutli-day trips last year, and never had an issue with food. The gas fridge worked great and uses very little gas. Actually, we used ONE propane tank for the whole season. Camped probably 15 nights, ran the water heater every night, fridge for the whole trip while traveling, and I used the same propane tank at home on the grill. Never ran out and never had to refill.
When you are home loading, have your camper plugged in and get the fridge cold using electric. When it's time to go, unplug and turn on the gas setting. Keep it on until you stop for the night or wherever you have electric, then switch back.
Just a quick side note,
When you stop for gas or for rest, check the fridge to make sure the pilot hasn't blown out. Sometimes if the wind from traveling is just right, it can blow out the pilot. Just kinda keep an eye on it, and you'll be fine.
We travel all the time with the propane turned on for the fridge. Some, though, are not comfortable with propane being on driving down the road. But I suspect most RVers do travel with it on.
If you get your fridge cold a couple days ahead of time it should keep things cold all day without being on propane. At least for 5 or 6 hours some say -- assuming you don't keep opening and closing the door. Why not run a test before leaving on your trip. Fill the fridge with stuff and see how long it stays cold. (You must have the fridge pretty full with something to do this test. An empty fridge would not work.)
Like "More to See" says, get the fridge cold with electric mode before you go, then travel with it on propane. Another good point made above ... check periodically (maybe when you stop for the evening) to ensure it's still on .. that it hasn't blown out with the wind).
When on propane, and it's already cold, you can turn it the temp control down quite a bit too!
Bigfoot85 wrote: Like "More to See" says, get the fridge cold with electric mode before you go, then travel with it on propane. Another good point made above ... check periodically (maybe when you stop for the evening) to ensure it's still on .. that it hasn't blown out with the wind).
When on propane, and it's already cold, you can turn it the temp control down quite a bit too!
For whatever reason, ours seems to work better on propane than it does on electric. I always thought it was supposed to be the other way around lol.
Our fridge is always on when traveling, and we often go for months.
Note 8 hours a day is a HARD thing to do towing.
We use campgrounds, even for overnight. Safer, electric, water, dump.
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Just a few words of caution if you're going to travel this way. Since you're in the NE part of the country, there are some tunnels up there where you must turn off the propane before going through.
Also, not sure what kind of camper you have. If the frig is close to your fuel fill or where others might be refueling, you'll want to turn off the frig before refueling.
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