In our previous iterations of camping vehicles and trailers we’ve used many different methods to carry and use water!  For a while we packed large blue jugs of water.  They were nearly impossible for me to move around and there was never any convenient spot to store them.  For a while we just put our water in one of those pressurized weed sprayers.  This was great for washing dishes and whatnot (great for the beach, BTW), but I always worried about breaking the hose and wand off of it.  In our camper we had a really simple setup with 5 gallons of water under the sink, a hand pump, and a drain bucket below.  This worked pretty well, but the hand pump wasn’t nearly as cool as I thought it was going to be. So… we’re still looking for the most convenient way to carry water in a vehicle for camping!

In our 4Runner, we decided to do it differently than before.  We have a 13 gallon molded plastic tank that’s made to fit behind our rear seats.  It’s not bolted down yet (and might not be!) because it’s going to be wedged between the cooler and our cargo tubs.  I have the outlet of the tank run to a tiny electric water pump that’s pressure sensitive and doesn’t need an accumulator tank. (I don’t have space for one anyway!)  From the pump it goes to a coiled up hose with nozzle so we can get like 10′ away from the truck with it.  I wired it to a cigarette plug with an inline switch so it can be powered by the truck or by our auxiliary battery in the back of the truck! Overall… it’s a pretty slick setup and should hopefully work well for us!

This will give us water for drinking and dishes.  We have a separate solar shower bag that we will fill and set on top of the truck in the sun to rinse off after a long day of hiking and exploring! Can’t wait to get out there on our road trip and start using all of this fancy stuff I’ve thought up while working on the boat! 😉