Traveling in an RV?

20 items we absolutely will not travel without

Are you considering or are you currently traveling in an RV? Our family began full time RV life back in 2019. I remember when we purchased our first motor home. We were talking with our extended warranty guy at Lazy Days RV in Tampa, Florida and he was telling us his personal horror story about being stranded in their 40 foot motor home on the side of the road with his wife and kids. Their serpentine belt had broke! Luckily, they had paid for roadside assistance and made the call. Now they had to just wait for help to arrive. That wait ended up being hours long and well into the night. They spent hours stuck with kids whining and frustration growing. The problem was that their roadside assistance company could not find the serpentine belt to replace their broken one. Once help did arrive the issue was fixed within 15 minutes. If he had only had an extra belt on board he could have saved him and his wife from hours of stress that day. From that moment forward he swore he would never travel without an extra serpentine belt. My husband and I soaked up the nuggets he freely gave us as we were sorting through and deciding what additional extended warranty package we were going to purchase.

Driving through a hurricane!

When you are traveling in an RV or pulling your full time or part time home behind you, it is as if your home is going through a hurricane every time you move. With that being said, there are things that break periodically. Our family strives to be as well prepared for this as possible, especially for the situations that could leave our family without working water, heating or AC. If we could save one person from the frustrating day our warranty guy experienced then we would be happy.

Below is a list of 20 items that we will not travel without.

These 20 items are from our family’s first hand experience or from someone we have met on the road. This list of 20 items will get you started and give you peace of mind when you are traveling in an RV and life throws you a curve ball. Remember…it is not if things will break, it is when things break you are better prepared.

1. An extra serpentine belt
2. An extra water pump (these go out all the time. We have been through 3 in our new RV since we bought it now 3.5 years ago. This is used when not hooked up to a campground water source and you must run off of your freshwater tank in your RV, you use this pump while boondocking & while driving in order to pump water to toilets and faucets).
3. Headlamp, Magnetic Flashlights & Flashlights Nothing is more frustrating than trying to fix something in an area that is hard to visualize or in the evening and having to rely on someone to hold a flashlight just right or being by yourself and needing an extra set of hands to fix the issue and hold the flashlight at the same time. This is where this baby comes in handy. We have used a headlamp in too many scenarios to count. Magnetic flashlights allow you to look under RV, in the motor, or other small area and get that light in a more precise spot. Regular flashlights always come in handy. We like these flashlights here due to their ability to change the size of the light to wider expanse vs precise spotlight.
4. Basic tool kit At minimum I would recommend a basic tool kit with screwdriver, hammer, etc. When you are traveling in an RV, there is always something that will need to be hammered or tightened down while on the road.
5. Air Compressor With our tires we needed a compressor that could go up to at least 150 PSI. With this motor home it can be difficult to find a gas station that can accommodate that amount of PSI and if you do find one, it can be difficult to get the motor home close enough and in the right position to use the compressor. Our family travels all over and in various climates. These climate changes will change the tire pressure and may need to be adjusted while traveling on the road safely. Safety is of the upmost importance to us.
6. Extra sewer hoses & water hose With constant use these thing break. The last thing you want is your one and only sewer hose breaking while trying to dump your tanks or getting to an RV campground and realizing your hose will not reach to the hookups. Our sewer hoses have broken many times on us and we have been to many campgrounds where we had to add 1 to 2 more hoses just to reach the septic hook up.
7. Bungee Cords We have needed these on many occasions for various reasons and are a good thing to keep around.
8. Leveling Blocks Leveling blocks are needed so when you get to the spot you’re camping at you can get level. We have heard stories from friends about them waking up with headaches due to sleeping while not level. Not to mention the irritation of bathroom doors, microwave/convection oven doors, or bathroom/bedroom doors in the camper not wanting to stay open or closed due to being unlevel. Not worth the stubbed toes, the bleeding nose or other bumps and bruises. We use the leveling blocks by Camco.
9. Extra hitch pins If you are towing either your RV or a vehicle these are a good thing to have. They are inexpensive but if you misplace them it could leave you stationary. We have accidentally left them on the ground, or on our Jeep bumper and drove off and lost them, or we have broken the pull ring on the pin. This ended up making it very difficult to unhook the Jeep once we got to our campground.
10. Dog Bone Power Adapter This little gem will allow you to plug in your RV into any power spot by converting your amps to 15, 20, 30 and vice versa. We are currently traveling through Canada and A LOT of RV parks are 30 amps. This little device changes our 50 amp power cord and allows us to plus into a 30 amp power outlet. We are currently traveling through Canada to Alaska and almost every park here is 30A. So our dog bone has. to be used every time. we stay in a park! Here is the adapter you need. Just be sure to get the one that is right for your camper! We have one that lets ur 50A rig plug into a 30A site.
11. Silicone slide out oil If you have slide outs it’s a good idea to keep a can of this around. Dirt and weather can cause slide outs to become difficult to bring in and out. This small can helps lube the area and allows for easy gliding so you don’t mess up your slide outs. It’s definitely worth the small $. We actually use this oil for lots of other things as well. We use it in place of WD-40 a lot of times. The one we use is 3 in One Slide out lube.
12. Extend-a-stay Propane tank I should have put this one at the top of the list. We will never travel in an RV without one! We drive a 38 foot, Forest River Georgetown. With that being said, it is so much easier to unhook a 20 pound propane tank and drive to fill it up than it is to break camp, pack everything in the camper, bring slide-outs in and drive the 38 foot motorhome somewhere to fill the onboard propane tank. If you get one, you will most likely need THIS adapter.
13. First-aid kit & Emergency Kit No explanation needed. We live and love nature, but nature can be unforgiving at times. When it is, a thorough and complete first aid kit/emergency kit can be life saving.
14. Life Straws Great to have on hand and in your emergency kit in case you run out of water. These little straws filter the water and makes it safe to drink.
15. Extra water filters Our camper has an onboard water filtration system. We travel all over the country. Some areas have better water than others. We usually buy several extra filters to keep on board so we make sure the water we are drinking is clean and safe. We have been in several situations where a water line has busted and has compromised the drinking water. We go through a lot of extra filters when this happens.
16. extra gas I remember when we were traveling from Rapid City, SD to Yellowstone NP in our Jeep. We got to an area and didn’t need gas at the time. We should have topped off the tank. The next gas stations had either closed down or were closed for the night. With gas to only get 17 more miles we found a closed gas station that left the fuel pumps on and we could use our card and fill up the tank. We were so close to being stranded with 3 kids, in a Jeep, on the side of the road in July. Since then, we always keep extra fuel with us. We have about 15 gallons of extra fuel with us at all times that we periodically rotate out. This could get us an additional 100 miles if needed.
17. Wood glue We’ve used this to fix doors, corners, cabinets hinges or knobs. Cost is minimal and we had to use this on numerous occasions.
18. Tape Don’t underestimate the power of some good tape. We have frog tape, duct tape, roof tape & awning tape on board and have used every single one of them many times over.
19. Zip ties Just like the bungee cords, these cheap little ties have helped us tremendously over the years.
20. Bear Spray Be Bear Aware! Even in the Southeast we have a high population of black bears. A good friend of ours was camping and had a bear right at their camper’s front door. Their young son went to walk to dog, opened the door, and came face to face with a black bear. It’s always good to have a can available. I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. We use Sabre Bear Spray.

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