I'm going to be spending 1.5 weeks traveling around California and am taking along my 7 in 1 cooker. I'd like to cook my meals while not in a hotel/motel situation. Where can one "plug in", to say, make a hot lunch?? Any suggestions?

Portable generator?

When you're "not in a hotel/motel situation," where will you be?

on the road between northern and southern CA.

Look into using the cigarette lighter in your car.

Rather than the cigarette lighter / power port which will have a limitation of around 100 to 150W max (far short of the power needed for a 7-1., look under the hood. You can connect a 1000 inverter directly to your battery. They can be found at any auto parts store or online.

Check into a campground and plug it in.
Gas station bath room? Someone may pound on the door even as fast as those Instant Pots are.

Gas station bath room? No way, no how would I bring anything consumable anywhere near such a place.
How about solar panels?

And how will you be storing food? I understand wanting to save money but not sure this is the answer.

How about a flameless ration heater (FRH) like the military uses to heat MREs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flameless_ration_heater

No other power source needed.

Why not make the food when you ARE in a motel with power. Then keep it in your cooler on ice, and heat with a small camp stove.

Or eat a sandwich. Do you really need a hot lunch everyday? This seems like a lot of work and I doubt you'll save much money.

Just adding on to my post above... Wouldn't a little propane camp stove be a lot easier and more convenient to use for a road trip than an InstaPot requiring electricity?

sounds like you are hoping to camp rough (not that easy to do most places) or on a very small budget - I doubt you want to spend the $150-$200 for a 1000 w inverter. A MRE flameless heater would cost a lot less.

But you ask "where to plug in?" which seems you are really asking where -- not how to heat things in your car. I would NOT think any entity/business/bldg would fit your needs.

Maybe come back and give us more details

suze's suggestion of a small stove makes sense to me.
My husband and I have an MSR backpacking cannister stove we can use to heat water or other one-pan items (soup usually).

Does anyone think we will hear from him again? ;o)

We sometimes make a hot lunch for picnics while traveling, but we just use a camp stove and/or tabletop grill.

test

If I were attempting this, and it is in fact a car trip leaving from home, I would do all the cooking at home, then freeze things in individual plastic containers, and take them in a cooler, then heat them up on a one burner stove. That makes a lot more sense (well none of this makes sense but that's a slightly better plan).

I mean think about it, how are you going to chop vegetables and cook from scratch when you're in a car? Even if you can find electricity to run your InstaPot somehow at the side of the road.

What are you testing, ibobi?

I think it has something to do with a thread in Tech Support about a problem Vttraveler had posting on this thread.

problem with thread not posting