What's the autonomy of a motorhome? And how to handle it?

These are the precautions you need to take on a motorhome trip:

• Fuel – Obviously if you want to drive the motorhome you’ll need fuel (diesel). The fuel deposits are around 70-80 liters and the fuel consumption is around 10-12 l/100km, so you can expect an autonomy of around 550 kms to 800 kms, depending on your driving.

• Battery “Electric energy” – You need electric energy to power the lights, the water pump, the TV and charge your mobile phone. All our motorhomes have one battery for the car and one or 2, special batteries for the “home”. These batteries are charged when you drive, by the solar panel, or when connected to the electric socket.
  Since we provide a solar panel on all motorhomes, you’ll never need to worry about the batteries running low. In such extreme cases, if you’re not on a campsite connected to the 220v electric power, you’ll need to switch on the engine to charge the batteries.

• Gas – We supply all our motorhomes with 2 gas bottles: one full and another that can be used. A gas bottle will last more than 20 days of consecutive usage for the fridge and water heating, so this isn’t something you’ll need to worry about.
  The gas is used to heat up the water, heat the “home” on cold days, and power the fridge when you are parked outside a campsite.

• Water – All our motorhomes have a water deposit of 120L or bigger. For a family of 4 people, this will last you around 2-3 days of showers, dishwashing, and other normal water usage. So, you need to plan to, every couple of days, either spend the night on a campsite, which offers the services to fill up the water tank, or you’ll need to go to a motorhome service area:
  Whenever you fill up clean water you’ll also need to empty the grey water tank (water used to shower, dishwashing, etc). Typically the grey water tank has the same capacity as the clean water tank;

• Chemical toilet – On a motorhome, you’ll also need to plan to empty the chemical toilet. On regular use, 4 persons will fill up the chemical toilet in 2-3 days so you’ll also need to plan to empty the cassette every couple of days. You can do this on a campsite or the multiple motorhome service areas available in Portugal.