Day: January 15, 2017

There are items that people who travel in a RV often forget from trip to trip. I’m not talking about full-time RVer’s. Those people know everything as far as I’m concerned! I’m talking about the rest of us who take occasional trips in a RV. I forget the same things from winter to winter when I play snowbird. Here are some examples and this list is not exhaustive:

1.  Clothes that don’t easily shrink in the dryer: One year, we came home from being snowbirds and literallly every piece of clothing we’d taken with us had shrunk. We learned a valuable lesson that year. RV park dryers have one drying temperature. HOT. Ditto for laundromats. Watch what you take. RV trips are very casual. Take casual clothes. I take lots of clothes so I don’t have to do laundry often so my clothes don’t have a chance to shrink!
2. Several pairs of comfortable shoes: This is not the time for high heels, girls. Many RV parks are the best places in the world to walk the dog, walk yourself, or ride your bike. Take your walking shoes and more than one pair. I take maybe two pairs of dressy shoes to go out to dinner at night. Dinner is usually casual too. I don’t mean fast food. I do mean nice, casual restaurants. Hint: I don’t cook much at night!
3. An umbrella: Everyone I know forgets an umbrella. Most people don’t purposefully go where it is constantly rainy but it does rain almost everywhere (sorry California). Take an umbrella or two.
4. A GPS especially for RVs: This has been worth its weight in gold. It tells you the height of the overpasses, what detours are RV-friendly, where the truck stops are, and many other facts crucial for RV owners.
5. Computer/phone cords for charging your stuff: If you are reading this, you’re a computer user. It seems like most of us have a smart phone these days. Some RVs have a few areas where you can charge your stuff — and some don’t. Take plugins that have multiple slots for USBs so you can plug in more than one USB-enabled computer or phone cord at once. You can get them at Wal-Mart. I have the ability to plug in ten computer/phone cords at one time. I’ve never tried that for fear it would torch the RV electrical system but I’ve plugged in a lot.
6. Phone with Personal Hot Spot Capability: If you work from the road as I do, or if it just important for you to keep in touch, know the WiFi at many RV parks is heavily used which means you cannot always get online. The parks are sometimes out of the way and not near a cell tower. Bottom line? Signal strength is bad. Set up a personal hot spot when you need one. It will make your life less stressful.
7. The food you normally eat: You will feel better if you stick to your normal diet. Before you hit the road, stock your RV pantry and refrigerator with the same things you eat at home, at least for the part of the trip when you are driving to your destination. You can grocery shop when you get there. Don’t buy big groceries until you do get there as that will cut down on the weight of the RV and beef up your already pitiful gas mileage. 🙂
8. Lawn Chairs: Unless you are going to the North Pole, you will want to be outdoors. A lot. RV’s get pretty confining, even the largest RV with the most slideouts. One winter in Florida, it rained. And rained. And rained. It was cold. My husband was lucky to have survived. 🙂 That was only one winter. The part of Florida we go to is almost always warm and dry in the winter with very low humidity. That year was an outlier. Take lawn chairs.

These are just a few items to remember and consider before you take a RV trip. I hope this list helps those of you who travel!