Winter RV Camping: Portable Space Heaters

Above, the Comfort Zone ceramic convection heater in The Beast. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Three years ago, I was camping in Joshua Tree National Park. The nighttime temperatures dropped down into the 30s and I had to use my RV built-in propane heater to keep warm.

The heater, I found, kept me warm, but it was at a cost. It ate up propane and battery electric power (I was dry camping, so no hook-ups).

Above, The Beast at Goulding's Lodge Campground at Monument Valley. It got down into the 20s there,
but the ceramic convection heater I bought in Topeka, Kansas kept me warm. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

A year later, I was camping at a RV resort in Topeka, Kansas and the temperatures there (and later at Monument Valley) dropped down to the 30s and below. Fortunately, I was near a Walmart in Topeka and bought a Comfort Zone ceramic convection heater for about $20. It worked great and I still use it. In fact, I bought two more of them for the house (one for my bedroom and one for the living room or den). They arrived in the mail yesterday.

As it happens, Do It Yourself RV has an article on three types of space heaters that will make winter camping much more comfortable.

They begin with:

Don't get left out in the cold this winter! Stay warm and cozy in your RV with these three portable space heaters that are guaranteed to take the chill out. 

The cold hard fact is that RVs and winter weather are not ideal companions. With little insulation and plenty of opportunities for chilly air to leak in, it can be difficult to keep an RV comfortably warm when the temperatures drop. That’s where portable space heaters come in handy. 

No matter how many times you vow to “follow the warm weather” while RVing, the truth is that you’re going to run into cold weather eventually. 

It could be a freak cold snap, the necessity of traveling through cold northern states to get to warmer states, camping at high elevations where the nights are almost always cold, living in your RV while working in a cold climate, camping in the spring and fall when temperatures go up and down—or maybe you just like to spend time in colder places.

To read more, go here.