The Benefits of Moochdocking

Of the three main types of camping — hookups at a campground, boondocking off the grid, and moochdocking — the last has a lot of appeal, for a number of reasons. Let’s look at the benefits of moochdocking.

What Is Moochdocking?

Moochdocking is the term we use to refer to parking our rig on the property of family or friends. This can range anywhere from a driveway to a spacious farm. Although no two moochdocking setups are identical, they usually include some sort of electric hookup, a way to get water, and laundry facilities.

Some arrangements have beefier electric hookups than others. With a normal 15-amp circuit, we can run the essentials in our fifth wheel: lights, outlets, refrigerator, electric water heater — and charge our laptops and phones. And if we switch the refrigerator from electric to propane and turn off the electric water heater, we can use our microwave.

With a 30-amp circuit, we can also run one of our two air conditioner units. Depending on the time of year, we may not need that option. With a 50-amp circuit, we can easily power everything inside our rig all at the same time, including both air conditioners, the microwave, refrigerator, electric water heater, vacuum, and more. 

Dedicated Time with Friends and Family

One of our favorite aspects of moochdocking is the time it affords us to catch up with family and friends. By staying at the homes of loved ones, we get to enjoy meals with them, fun activities, reminiscing, and lots of laughter.

Thanks to our affiliation with the Commemorative Air Force and our experience with Continental Singers and Orchestra (where we met), we know lots of people across the country. With those friends and our spread-out family members, we have someone to visit in nearly every state. Moochdocking offers us more frequent opportunities to see those loved ones than we’d get living in sticks and bricks.

Cost Savings

As you might imagine, mooching electricity and water from others helps the bank account. And by spending time with our hosts, we tend to take fewer trips in Gulliver during a stay, which saves on diesel costs.

That’s not to say we take advantage of loved ones in this type of setup. Quite the contrary. We realize the blessing it is to spend time with and benefit from family and friends’ generosity and are quick to compensate where possible. 

That compensation can come in the form of cooking meals (something Bob loves to do and is really good at), helping with home projects, reimbursing toward an electric bill, or taking our hosts out for a fancy meal — or a combination of things.

Longer Stays

As a result of the cost savings and additional resources moochdocking offers, we’re often at liberty to stay in one location longer. By using hosts’ bathroom and kitchen facilities, our black and gray wastewater tanks don’t fill up as quickly as they otherwise would.

This in itself provides a number of benefits. We have more time to help with projects, more time to catch up with people we haven’t seen in a long time, and more time to investigate the area. That’s how we were able to do quite a bit of exploring in Virginia, for example. It’s also why we were able to get a true Cajun experience in Louisiana.

Longer stays also give us opportunities to take care of needed maintenance and repairs on our rig. The key is not wearing out our welcome so that we can return for another visit.

Helping Others

We’ve always enjoyed gaining and employing skills and experience by doing manual labor. With moochdocking and longer stays, we’re more readily available to pitch in on various projects, and we take joy in it. I once termed this “tradedocking” — working for a free place to stay. Not only does this help family and friends, but it also gives us memories together. 

We helped paint, renovate a bathroom, lay laminate flooring, upgrade computers and equipment, do construction projects, trim trees, and more.

Sleeping in Our Own Bed

One of the biggest benefits of moochdocking is being able to visit loved ones for a week or more and sleep in our own bed every night. As the saying goes, “There’s no place like home.” Likewise, there’s no place like our own bed for a good night’s rest. 

Moochdocking is a truly welcome experience. We’re thankful for our many friends and family scattered across the country, both those who have space for us and those who don’t. Being able to visit you all is a blessing we treasure. 
 
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