Believe me, we have made every RV mistake possible. This article introduces the RVer to basics for setting and breaking the RV camp.
Here is probably my biggest tip of all. When breaking camp, AKA getting ready for the road, have a plan.
Whether you use a checklist or just do things from memory, it helps to do the tasks in the same sequence each time. That is, if you usually roll the TV antenna down first then raise the rear stabilizers, do it that way each and every time.
If you do it this way it will make missing something along the way more unlikely. Oh ya!
Let's say you are putting up the rear stabilizers and your darling wife asks you a question. Do not stop. Finish the task and then respond. I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me and later I find that I didn't return to the same task but started another...with the stabilizers not yet completely up. You don't want to drive away like that.
I read what sounds like a real good tip in an RV magazine just the other day. Let's say you want to back into a site at night, in the pitch dark. This tip suggests that you use blue rope lights as guideline, much like runway lights at an airport. This sounds really neat and I can't wait to try it. The rope lights make great patio lights as well, when you are not using them to park.
Here is a tip I sort of hate to tell. We don't travel at night much we prefer to start early and stop early say 3 or 3:30. This way we get the better spots, LOL, and we break out the lawn chairs open a cold beverage and watch the latter arrivals trying to back into their less desirable site.
Start early and stop early - only travel 300 to 350 miles. Make your stops in route multi-purpose. Do as many things, eat, potty, fuel, at each stop as possible.
On leaving our site...the last thing I do...usually as my wife is hollering "let's go, it's getting late," is move about 20 feet away from the RV lot and walk around the rig. All the way, I'll ask myself: is there anything sticking up, down, or out?
We have been on the road RVing for the better part of five years. Over those five years we have made most every mistake, done things the hardest way and bought every useless contraption there is. I hope that these tips will make you RV road savvy in a much shorter time than it took us.
My disclaimer to this is that how one person does things. It's not always the best way for another. Take theese tips and make them work for YOU using your own methods.
There are many more things we need to talk about along these lines. If you have a tip, share it with the rest of us on the forum.
