I’ve been camping with my teardrop trailer for 4 seasons, racking up 19,000+ km so far and have stayed at dozens of campgrounds. Over that time, I’ve seen generator use become increasingly prevalent. And irritating. And sometimes downright ridiculous—like tent campers with a small generator outfront and when my eyes followed the extension cord it led to an electric coffee maker on their picnic table… saw this scenario not once, but twice, at two different parks during last autumn’s Big Trip in a Tiny Trailer.

Before I continue, I’ll just say this is my first post ranting about anything in the 3 years since starting this blog. There’s rampant ranting all over cyberspace… and it’s not the intention of this blog… but allow me to indulge this once 😉 I promise to include some constructive action suggestions we teardrop campers can take rather than just complain about the problem.

Generator Use at What Campgrounds?

Before ranting, I’ll define a parameter to this topic and say I am referring to my experience at Ontario Provincial Parks, which amount to 90% of the campgrounds I’ve stayed at with my teardrop camper. I’d be interested to hear your experience, whether at Ontario Parks campgrounds or others…. use the Comment form at bottom of page.

The Low Cost of Convenience

The electric coffee maker setup I saw leaves me shaking my head and feeling like the world has gone nuts (yes, yes, I know, the world has gone nuts as clearly evidenced by other unrelated events we won’t get into here), and it reminds me that—here in this part of the world anyhow—we enjoy a high degree of privilege at a low degree of cost.

Portable gasoline-powered generators are relatively inexpensive to buy and cheap enough to run (though these days the cost of fuel to get yourself to the campground is another story… three cheers for tiny, light trailers!), such that they are accessible to most campers who might wish to enjoy some of the home-like conveniences that a “gennie” can power.

“Strange Bedfellows”

I find the simultaneous combination of those two desires troubling on the macro level, which is to say its impact on the environment with multiple types of pollution. And on the micro level, which is to say its impact on my experience, I find the application of those two desires in tandem damn irritating. With all the conveniences (read: luxuries) of a larger trailer, folks spend a fair bit of time inside—cooking, eating, dishwashing, hanging out, and so on.  BUT the generator is on the outside, sometimes a long extension cord length away from their trailer, so they’re not hearing the noise anywhere near as much as neighbouring campers are.

Bizarre as the mini-gen hooked up to a coffee maker seems to me, they are at least not too noisy and typically not run for long durations. My issue is more the folks with larger setups who wish to camp where there are no services and yet want to have full electrical service on demand whilst they do so.

And even when these folks are outside their trailer, campers with a gennie running are not going to experience the noise in the same way as others in their vicinity. There’s a psychology to this, and it’s an innocent one, that we tend not to perceive our own noise as being as loud or as obtrusive as noise made by others. It’s a lot like when there’s a group of loud campers at night, blissfully clueless that their voices can be heard rippling through the dark campground so much further beyond their site than they might imagine.

When I was camping at Wakami Lake PP (all sites unserviced) last September, I was on a gorgeous waterfront campsite, on a pristine undeveloped northern lake, unfortunately stuck between a large dual-axle trailer on one side and a medium-sized travel trailer on the other, both using generators. The large trailer ran theirs morning thru evening with maybe a couple hours downtime over the day. At least they respected the quiet time hours. The other trailer ran theirs occasionally during the day, constantly during the evening, and apparently had their clock on a different time zone when it came to shut-down time.

Varied Park Rules & Enforcement

So, here’s the core of my rant:

There seems to be no uniform policy or minimum standards on generator use across Ontario Provincial Parks. At most parks, there is a designated period when generator use is not permitted (i.e., evening through morning) though times vary from park to park. At some, shut-off time is not until 9 or 10 PM and turn-on time is as early as 7 AM, which doesn’t leave a lot of quiet to enjoy outside of sleeping.

There is great variation in how generator-restriction times are communicated at Ontario Parks. At some, it’s nothing more than a condition on the campground permit or a single line written in the park tabloid. Some parks post generator times on the entrance signs to the park and/or each campground area, while others try novel approaches like at Wakami Lake PP where there are reminder signs in each privy and wash station.

There is also great variation in enforcement of generator hours, as well as other noise for that matter, at Ontario Parks. It’s so futile seeing Park Wardens driving their patrols with windows up. Doing their rounds in quiet EVs, golf carts (or even better an e-bike!) would be a lot more useful for their situational awareness of the park they are entrusted with patrolling and protecting.

In addition to banning generator use in the evening hours, some parks do make an attempt to limit their use during daytime. At Restoule PP for instance, there is a posted one-hour maximum run time. Though it’s unenforceable since there’s no downtime requirement… a dumbass would be within the rule to shut down their gennie then promptly restart for another hour. So it’s really just a courtesy request/reminder, but hey at least something to bring attention to courteous generator use.

There are some parks with many campsites, the majority of which are electric, and yet generator use is still permitted in the unserviced campground area. An example is Ivanhoe Lake PP, where about 2/3 of the campsites are electrical and yet in the unserviced area you see campers in tents side-by-side with a site containing large trailers with generators running.

Mercifully, some parks have a designated generator-free campground areas (e.g.,Chutes PP, Awenda PP) often in conjunction with being radio/amplified-device free. This is straightforward, unambiguous, and always a welcome relief. I wish they were mandated at every park, even if just a campground subsection or loop in parks with parks with a small number of campsites.

Enough about the problem, what can we do to make it better?

I think what irritates me most is that somehow it seems to be that the right to use a generator is the default rather than the right to enjoy the great outdoors in peace, which seems backward. It’s a radical notion but why isn’t it the case that generators are not permitted except in designated areas? I know, it’ll never happen. Here’s a few more realistic actions we can take:

Try chatting with nearby gennie-using campers to gently increase their awareness. They truly may not realize the noise impact, especially on tent campers and others like teardroppers who spend most of their time outside of their accommodation. My experience has been that it is helpful to engage in a few friendly camper-neighbour brief chit-chats, like when passing by to the water tap or privy, before getting to the generator topic.

If you have a solar setup on your teardrop, see if gennie-using campers might be interested to learn about solar and batteries. They might like to reduce the noise, and exhaust smell, and not have to be feeding it gasoline. Teardrop “off-grid” solar systems are small capacity compared to the needs of a larger trailer, but it’s just a matter of scaling up! What’s more, travel trailers tend to have a good amount of real estate on the roof for panel setups.

Communicate your preferences (and concrete complaints for situations you have experienced) to the park. Suggest/Request/Demand any or all of the following, as you wish:

• That the park designate a generator free campground, or loop or sub-section. And that it be a decent area, comparable with others, not a block of undesirable sites in the backwoods.
• That generator-permitted times are not too early, or too late, specifying whatever that is for you.
• That the park determine an enforceable, realistic policy to limit generator runtime, to prevent campers from just having them on most of the day as if it were a serviced camp site.
• That the park clearly post generator times and restrictions on obvious signage at the entrance to each campground area, and elsewhere… ideally at each camp site.
• That exceptions to generator restrictions respect the camper’s exceptional needs while also being mindful of others. For example, a camper using an electrically-powered medical device could use a mini-gen to power just the device rather than a full-size gen powering the whole trailer.

Most parks still seem to have a comment card drop-off box. But it may be far more effective and direct to ask at the office for the card/contact info of the Area Superintendent, since it is at an administrative level that these kinds of changes are likely to be made.