Enjoying Life As a Senior - Traveling in an RV!

Being able to enjoy ourselves and go on vacation is always a way to help anyone stay young longer especially mentally. If you are a senior and want to travel around the country now because you find yourself with the time to do so, you should follow these few tips to help you better plan for and enjoy you time. This is especially true if you are planning to travel in an RV. You want to be able to enjoy yourself without going bankrupt at the same time. Traveling for seniors can help alleviate the boredom that comes with retirement and alleviate the affects that aging can have on a person's mood and personality.

If you own an RV or are planning on renting one, there are ways that you can cut down on the cost of having to pay for a spot to rent overnight for your RV. There are a ton of Wal-Marts all over the country that enjoy letting those who are traveling in an RV to park their RV's overnight in their parking lots. Their lots are generally huge and this gives them the freedom to allow you to do this. You can also save yourself some money if you just go to travel websites that offer updated maps and different kinds of travel guides that you can simply print out for your journey.

Instead of constantly spending money on calling your family while you are on your road trip, consider getting yourself some wireless Internet service for the RV or simply stop at the current town you might be in and go to their local library. Most libraries today offer free Internet service. This way you can send updates via email to all of your friends and family during your trip.

It's always better no matter what way you are traveling to try and plan your vacation during the off season. These are the times you will more than likely be able to get better prices at RV parks, campgrounds, places to eat and local attractions. You will also notice that the gas prices will generally be less during this time of year as well.

When planning for your trip, make sure that you find places that are friendly towards seniors and may offer special deals. The kind of places that especially care for and cater to those who are over the age of 50. Not only will you save extra money but it will make you feel kind of pampered as well.

Don't overload the RV. Try to pack as light as you can. This will help cut down on the gas you will be using on your trip. Make sure to only take the things that you specifically need for your road trip and always try to use small sized items if you are going on a short trip as compared to a longer trip.

No matter what age you are, anyone who plans on driving an RV should seriously consider taking an RV driving and safety course before going off on their road trip. Especially if they have never driven one before. You should also make sure that you have some sort of coverage.

Remember a well planned trip will help you feel young if you cut out all of the stress. Staying young is part mental and being able to enjoy a vacation whenever you possibly can, can add years to your life and the way you feel about yourself and everything around you.

A Non-MPPT Solar Panel Will Have a Difficult Time to Fully Charge the RV, Caravan and Boat Battery

If a solar panel is not equipped with MPPT (maximum-power-point-tracker) technology, it will not perform at its highest efficiency when charging the RV / Caravan / Boat battery. Below are some facts that cause this inefficiency to happen.

• During the different stages of the RV / Caravan / Boat battery's capacity, the battery requires a different voltage applied to the terminals to get itself fully charged.

• A solar panel produces a different output voltage under different conditions: intensity of the sunlight, ambient temperature, the rated output voltage level on the STC (standard Test Condition).

• The required voltage to fully charge the battery and the output voltage from the solar panel is usually not matched at any single time.

So what happens when you hook up a 70 watt solar panel to your battery? Unfortunately, what goes into the battery is not 70 watts. On a given situation, your panel puts out 3.69 amps. Your battery is setting at 12 volts under charge: 3.69 amps times 12 volts = 44.28 watts. You lose 25 watts. That 25 watts is not going anywhere - it just is not being produced because there is a poor match between the solar panel and your RV / Caravan / Boat battery. With a very low capacity battery, say 10.5 volts, it's even worse - you could be losing as much as 35% which is 38 watts (3.69 amps times 10.5 volts = 38 watts).

Conclusion: Due to the constantly poor match of the required voltage to fully charge the battery and the output voltage from the solar panel, the non-MPPT panel usually will have trouble completely replenishing the RV / Caravan / Boat battery. What an RV / Caravan / Boat owner needs is a smart enough MPPT device to convert the solar panel output to the required voltage, to fully charge the battery and not throw away the panel generated power.