Our built-in Onan generator died on a Tuesday morning in southern Utah, and we did not realize it until we tried to run the air conditioner that afternoon when the temperature hit 98 degrees. We were four days into a two-week boondocking trip on BLM land outside Moab, no hookups for thirty miles in any direction, and the thing would not even turn over. We heard one click, then nothing. That experience taught us everything we know about choosing the right Portable Generator RV setup for full-time boondocking.
That night, we slept with every window open and a battery-powered fan aimed directly at our faces.
The next morning, we drove into town, found an RV service center, and got the news: the repair would take at least a week, maybe two, and cost somewhere north of $1,200. We had reservations at three more boondocking spots over the next ten days, all of them in the desert, all of them requiring power for the AC. We could cancel the trip and head home, or we could figure out another way to generate electricity. We bought our first portable generator that afternoon at a big box store, tested it in the parking lot, and drove back out to our campsite before sunset.
That generator was not the right one. We learned that about six months later. But it got us through that trip, and it taught us everything we now know about what actually matters when you are picking a portable generator for boondocking.
Inverter Generators Changed Everything — And Here’s the Mistake We Made First
The generator we bought in Moab was a standard open-frame model, not an inverter. It was cheap, it was in stock, and the guy at the store said it would run our AC. He was right about that last part. It did run the AC.
It also sounded like a lawn mower running three feet from our bedroom window, and it made our LED lights flicker every time the compressor kicked on. We used it for the rest of that trip, then sold it two months later and bought an inverter generator instead.
The difference is night and day. Inverter generators produce clean, stable power that does not mess with electronics or cause lights to dim. They are quieter, usually by a lot. The one we bought in Moab ran at around 67 decibels under load, which is loud enough that we could not have a conversation near it. The inverter model we replaced it with runs in the mid-50s, quiet enough that we can sit outside ten feet away and barely notice it.
The Portable Generator RV market still has plenty of standard, non-inverter models because they are cheaper and they work fine for running power tools or job site equipment. If you are not running sensitive electronics and you do not care about noise, they will do the job. But for RV life, where you are living next to the thing and running laptops, phone chargers, and a refrigerator with a digital control board, an inverter is worth every extra dollar. We have talked to plenty of other RVers at campgrounds who made the same mistake we did, and most of them wished they had started with an inverter model from day one.
How We Actually Pick the Right Portable Generator RV Size Without Guessing
We have found that most people, including us the first time, wildly overestimate how much power they actually need. We thought we needed at least 4,000 watts to run everything in our fifth wheel. Turns out we were wrong.
Last summer, we spent a week boondocking in the Coconino National Forest in Arizona, and we brought a watt meter to figure out what our rig actually pulls. Our 13,500 BTU air conditioner, the biggest power hog we have, draws about 2,800 watts when the compressor first kicks on, then settles down to around 1,800 watts while running. Our microwave pulls 1,200 watts. The fridge, the lights, the water pump, and the phone chargers combined add maybe another 200 watts at any given moment.
We do not run the microwave and the AC at the same time. Nobody does. So in practice, the most we ever pull is the AC plus the fridge and a few lights — about 2,000 watts on the steady draw, with that 2,800-watt spike when the compressor first kicks in. A 3,000-watt generator handles that: comfortably on the running load, with just enough headroom to absorb the startup surge.
The mistake we made early on — one of several first-time boondocking errors that shaped our Portable Generator RV thinking — was adding up every appliance in the rig as if we would run all of them simultaneously. We would not. We do not even have enough outlets to plug everything in at once.
The real question is not how much total power your RV could theoretically use, but how much you will actually pull at one time during a normal day of boondocking. For most RVers running a single AC unit, a furnace, a fridge, and basic electronics, 3,000 watts is plenty. If you have two AC units or you plan to run heavy tools, you might need more. But we have never needed more, and we have boondocked through some serious heat — Arizona summers, Mojave shoulder season, Texas in August.
Our Two Favorite Generators After Testing Seven Different Models
We have owned, borrowed, or tested seven different Portable Generator RV models over the last few years. Two of them are still with us. The other five got returned, sold, or given away.
The Honda EU3000 is the one we use most often. It is dead reliable, it is quiet enough that we can sleep with it running fifteen feet from the rig, and it has enough power to run our AC all day without struggling. We bought ours used in 2022, and it has never failed to start. The soundproofing on this model is noticeably better than the EU2200, which we also tested. The EU2200 is lighter and easier to move around, but it does not have quite enough power to start our AC on a hot day. The EU3000 does, every time.
The Predator 3500 is our backup, and honestly, it gets used almost as much as the Honda. It is a gas inverter generator and shockingly quiet for the price. We were skeptical when we first bought it because it costs about half what the Honda does, but it has held up through two years of regular use. The main downside is weight. It is heavier than the Honda, which matters when you are lifting it in and out of a truck bed.
The other five models we tested did not make the cut:
- Champion 3100 — louder than we wanted, with a pull start that required more muscle than we were willing to deal with every morning.
- Westinghouse 4500 — overkill for our needs and too heavy to move easily.
- Generac GP3000 — rattled itself across the ground while running and sounded like a tractor.
- A cheap no-name inverter from an online retailer died after three uses.
- Yamaha EF2400 — great, but did not have quite enough power for our AC on the hottest days, so we returned it and went with the Honda instead.
Running AC in Death Valley Taught Us Everything About Fuel and Runtime
We spent six days boondocking in the Panamint Valley outside Death Valley National Park in October 2024, and that trip taught us more about generator fuel consumption than any spec sheet ever could. Daytime temperatures were in the low 90s, which meant we ran the AC from about 10 AM until sunset every day.
The Honda EU3000 has a 3.4-gallon fuel tank, and at half load, which is roughly what our AC pulls, it runs for about seven hours before it needs a refill. We went through about a gallon and a half of gas per day, sometimes a little more if we ran the generator into the evening to top off the batteries. Over six days, we burned through under ten gallons total, which cost us around $45 at the gas station in Pahrump on the way out.
The Predator 3500 has a slightly smaller tank and burns fuel a little faster under the same load, but the difference is not huge. We have tracked fuel costs over the last six months across a dozen different boondocking trips, and we average about $60 to $80 per week when we are running a generator daily. That is cheaper than we expected, and way cheaper than paying for a full-hookup site every night.
The trade-off we did not anticipate was noise versus runtime. The Honda runs quieter, but if we throttle it down to save fuel, it does not produce enough power to start the AC compressor. The Predator runs hard at full throttle most of the time, which burns more fuel but guarantees consistent power. We have learned to use the Honda during the day when we care about noise, and the Predator at night when we need the batteries charged and we are inside with the windows closed anyway.
The other thing that trip taught us was that fuel management matters more than tank size. We keep two five-gallon jerry cans strapped in the truck bed, which gives us enough fuel for a full week without needing to find a gas station. That has saved us more than once when we were camped somewhere remote and did not want to break camp to refuel. The National Park Service warns that summer temperatures in Death Valley regularly exceed 120 degrees, which is exactly why we time our trips there for October — and why we never go without a generator we trust.
Before Your First Boondocking Trip, Test Your Generator at Home
Do not wait until you are three hours from the nearest town to find out your generator does not start, or that it is louder than you thought, or that it does not have enough power to run your AC. We learned this the easy way, for once, by testing our first generator in the driveway before we ever took it on the road.
Run it for at least an hour. Listen to how loud it actually is from ten feet away, then from twenty feet, then from inside your rig with the windows closed. Plug in your AC and see if the generator bogs down when the compressor starts. Practice refueling it while it is hot, because you will have to do that on a 95-degree afternoon in the middle of nowhere eventually. Make sure you know where the choke is, how to check the oil, and how to reset the circuit breaker if you overload it. The U.S. Department of Energy has a solid primer on portable-generator safety, including the carbon-monoxide and refueling rules every RVer should know cold.
We also recommend running it overnight at least once to see if the noise bothers you while you are trying to sleep. Some generators that sound fine during the day become unbearable at 2 AM when everything else is silent. You will be glad you figured that out at home instead of at a campsite where you are annoying your neighbors and losing sleep.
The hour we spent testing our Honda in the driveway saved us from making a bad decision. We almost bought a cheaper model that ran fine under no load but could not handle the AC startup surge. We only found that out because we tested it before we left. Now we test every piece of gear before it goes on a trip, and we have had a lot fewer surprises in the field because of it.
That Tuesday morning in Moab when our Onan died, we thought the trip was over. Turns out it was the beginning of figuring out how to boondock without depending on a built-in generator that costs a fortune to fix every time it breaks. Test your gear at home, know what your rig actually needs, and buy the quietest Portable Generator RV setup you can afford. You will use it more than you think, and you will be glad you spent the extra money on something that works.
