For longer power-independent camping, a solar panel makes a lot of sense. While having one permanently mounted on the roof is still a plan, the benefit of a flexible panel which can be placed anywhere in the sun while the California is parked in the shade has it's appeal.
It also doubles up for some backup power at home. It can provide coffee. Emergency averted.
There are many good options, by Offgrid-Tech, Terranger, Calicap, Buettner. For our portable solution we chose the Ecoflow River Pro battery bank/inverter and an Ecoflow 160W solar panel.
The solar panel can also be connected to the camping van battery. For this, a Victron MPPT 75/15 is mounted under the driver seat and connected to the interior camping battery. It's PV in is connected to a magnetic connector (brand: MagCode) behind the driver seat, where the solar cable can easily be attached and is safe from little feet stepping on the connector without breaking it.
The MPPT:s load-out is wired to a quick-connect XT60 connector to either directly charge the Ecoflow after the van battery is full, or it can power anything else we chose to connect to a 12V adapter, like the Dometic CFX3 cooler.
