10 Tips For New RVers

By Courtney Kane-Barbaglia

MY WIFE, BETH, and I are a married millennial couple living and working full time from a 26-foot RV as we travel the country. In April 2020, we decided to sell our house and belongings to move into an RV, despite having zero experience. Now we share our journey and lifestyle through a variety of social channels online. We learned a lot during our first year on the road and want to help others who are new to RVing with our top 10 tips for getting started.

1 ALWAYS CHOCK YOUR TIRES

We’ve encountered veteran RVers who will say, “Ah, don’t worry about it, just throw some wood in front of the tires,” but we’re here to tell you to worry about it and use legit chocks.

One of our inaugural experiences with our trailer was unhooking it for the first time and having it roll down our driveway until the tongue jack dug itself into the ground. Once you have an experience like that, you never forget to chock your tires, and you tell everyone about the importance.

We chock in the front and the back, both because we’re traumatized and because of the grade of the land we’re parking on. There’s no hard and fast rule for chocking the front tires, because sometimes your campsite is slanted backward and you need the chocks behind the tires. If you’re not sure, put them on both sides or use X-Chocks.

Don’t forget to remove the chocks before you leave! We’ve also made the mistake of pulling away with the chocks still in place, ultimately running them over and leaving them behind.

2 DON’T HOOK OR UNHOOK YOUR RIG WHEN TIRED OR HANGRY

Sometimes you don’t have a choice. Sometimes the only option is to get out of the campground by checkout or finish the trip and get your rig unhooked. But when you have the choice, don’t. This is not only because it results in approximately 72% more fights, but also for your safety.

When we’re sleep-deprived, hungry, or frustrated, we’re not thinking straight, and one shortcut or missed step could lead to a rig not being properly secured or stabilized, which means someone can get injured.

3 BE CROSS-TRAINED IN YOUR RV RESPONSIBILITIES

As you regularly hook and unhook, set up, and tear down your rig, you’ll notice you fall into patterns of who does what. This is what we recommend so that nothing is missed, but it’s also very important that you know how to do each other’s jobs in case of an emergency.

If someone is sick or injured, you’ll need to know how to do all the chores on your own.

One time at a campsite in Georgia, we were casually packing up our site the night before a travel day, enjoying a day fire and taking in the outdoors, when my back completely seized out of nowhere. I couldn’t move, and within 30 seconds, had to lie face-down in the dirt next to our fire pit trying to alleviate the pain.

We were hoping it would resolve the next day, and until it did, I was incapacitated. Beth was solely responsible for getting us to our next site safely.

It doesn’t always have to be injuries that put you in this position. We both work full time, and Beth was on a work call once when we arrived at a campground in Phoenix, Arizona, so I backed us into our campsite and unhooked all by myself, which was an empowering experience!

4 USE WALKIE TALKIES TO COMMUNICATE

Communication is key to the full-time RV lifestyle, especially when you’re backing in your rig.

There’s a saying you may have seen on tee shirts or coffee mugs in the camping world: “I’m sorry for what I said when I was backing in the camper.” Backing your rig into a campsite can be frustrating, exhausting, and sometimes embarrassing, three things that can be a disastrous combination.

We decided to do everything in our power to avoid these feelings when moving into campsites, which led us to get walkie-talkies. You’ll see some people using their phones. We tried this, but with the Bluetooth connections, we had a new frustration on our hands when the wrong person’s phone kept connecting to the truck and we were missing vital directions from each other. We also think it’s better to not hear each other’s every thought while backing up.

With walkie-talkies, communication is quicker and more reliable. Unfortunately, we see lots of couples shouting and getting really frustrated with each other in the backing-in process, which only makes the whole experience more unpleasant. With walkies, you can give each other directions quietly and calmly for a smooth parking experience.

5 USE A CHECKLIST FOR SETUP AND TEARDOWN

When it comes to the moving process with an RV, there’s a lot to remember: packing, hooking up, unhooking, setting up, and then there are the maintenance pieces, such as checking your tire PSI and lug nuts. It can be overwhelming, and it holds some people back from diving into the full-time RV lifestyle.

We totally get it; we were there too! Think of it this way: At some point in your life, you didn’t know how to do something you really wanted to do. You ultimately found a way by taking it one step at a time and building confidence as you went.

Use a setup and teardown checklist as you get started so you don’t miss anything. You’ll make adjustments to your checklist over time, but keep using it so you can feel confident every time you hit the road.

6 LEVEL YOUR RIG

There’s little worse than unhooking your travel trailer only to realize everything rolls to the left and all your doors swing open and smack you in the face. Plus, with certain layouts, you can wake up with killer headaches from being tipped slightly downward all night if you’re not level, because the blood rushes to your head.

In extreme cases, being unlevel can even ruin your refrigerator because of the liquid needed to run through the coils.

We use the LevelMate Pro for leveling, but a good ol’ regular level works too. Be sure to level side to side before unhooking, then put your chocks in, unhook from your truck, and level front to back.

7 MAKE SURE YOUR UTILITIES REACH

This one is pretty rare. We’ve been on the road for more than a year and a half and have only run into a couple of sites with this issue, but it goes like this: You get to a site, back in, level, unhook, level again, go to plug in your utilities, and they don’t reach.

This most commonly happens with the sewer hose, but has also happened to us with our electric hookups. Unfortunately, it means removing your chocks, hooking your trailer back up, and doing the whole process again.

The simple way to avoid this is to get your cords and hoses out before you unhook to make sure they reach.

8 USE A WATER PRESSURE REGULATOR AND FILTER

Avoid damage to your water lines by using a water pressure regulator that connects at the spigot. Attaching it right at the spigot also protects your hose. Some campgrounds with extremely high water pressure even mandate that you have a water pressure regulator. We also recommend protecting your body from toxic chemicals by using a water filter inside and outside. Campgrounds provide potable water, but that doesn’t mean it’s totally purified. We have one water filter on our hose coming into the rig and we also use a countertop reverse osmosis water filter to purify our drinking and cooking water.

9 CHECK YOUR PROPANE PROACTIVELY AND CONSISTENTLY

We ran out of propane on Christmas morning while trying to make our traditional Christmas feast, so we had to pay $60 for a tank at a 7-Eleven, instead of $20 to refill our tanks. We also ran out of propane in the middle of the night when it was 30 degrees. You’d think we’d learn!

Mark a date on the calendar every couple of months to check your propane levels. Most rigs come with a gauge on the lines that hook into the propane tanks, so you can tell when you’re running low.

10 KNOW YOUR SURROUNDINGS AND PLAN AHEAD

Research your next campsite and its surroundings before you go. More than once, we assumed our next stop would have similar grocery stores and amenities to our current site, only to find out there was only one grocery store within 20 miles, and it was actually a gas station convenience store. If we had known, we could have gone grocery shopping before moving to the next stop.

Scope out what you’re working with ahead of time so you never have to choose pasta from Dave’s Pit Stop. No one wants Dave’s Pit Stop pasta.

BONUS TIP

Be mindful of your slide(s) too. When you’re backing in, make sure you have room to open them all the way without hitting the electrical box or your neighbors.

SUPER BONUS TIP

We turn on the water spigot and electric box separately before unhooking, just to make sure the hookups work. Again, super annoying to finally get settled only to realize your hookups have issues and you have to move.

Find Courtney and Beth on Instagram @lifewithbethandcourt or lifewithbethandcourt.com