There are lots of lists of the standard RV gear that the industry recommends that you carry in your RV, but many fail to mention some of the most useful things that experienced RV’ers know about. Read on to learn 15 of the useful things for RV that you should be carrying in your RV.
As full-time RV’ers, we have over 15,000 miles of experience traveling on road trips. Sometimes, things don’t always go as planned and we’ve needed to improvise until we could get to our next destination. We’ve learned that some common and expensive items can make RV trips go a lot smoother by having them available when you need them.
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Here’s a list of 15 useful things for RV you should carry with you on your next road trip!
1. Waterproof Tarp
Why carry a tarp in your RV?
It not only comes in handy if you need to cover things up to protect them from weather, but there are a few other reasons we always carry one. You never know when you may need to crawl under your RV to do a quick repair and a tarp is a perfect solution to keep you from rolling around in the dirt!
Tarps are Cheap and Easy to Store
You don’t need a large tarp and you can purchase them for under $20. Plus you can fold them up and store them practically anywhere, so even if your RV is small there is always room for a tarp.
2. Kneeling Pads
What is a Kneeling Pad?
A kneeling pad is a small, lightweight foam pad that you can use to sit or kneel on. We found out about kneeling pads when we began doing home remodeling and now always carry two of them with us wherever we go.
Kneeling Pads Are Inexpensive and Lightweight
It’s important to not overload your RV with too many heavy things, but kneeling pads weigh less than a pound and are cheap to purchase, and last a long time.
3. Electric Blower
Why Carry An Electric Blower in Your RV?
An electric blower comes in handy for a few reasons in your RV. First, when you arrive at your campsite you can use it to blow away leaves and dirt before you place your outdoor rug and chairs out. Then when you are ready to pack up and leave you can blow off the dirt before packing them back into your RV.
Use a Blower on RV Slides and Awning
If your RV has slides as many do, you don’t want to close your slide without first cleaning off the top. Leaves can get stuck in the top of the slide keeping it from not closing all the way which keeps the slide from sealing properly making it not water-tight. Nothing worse than having rain leak into your RV!
Also, you can use your blower to clean off your RV awning before closing it. RV awnings are expensive and it’s important that you take care of them. Tree debris, sticks, and twigs can get caught in your awning and when you close it they can puncture holes in the fabric.
4. Outdoor Extension Cords
Why Carry Outdoor Extension Cords in Your RV?
Even if you don’t carry an electric blower in your RV, carrying a couple of outdoor extension cords is a good idea. You might use them for portable appliances if you decide to cook outside and enjoy the outdoors.
5. Landscape Loppers or Clippers
Why Carry Landscape Loppers in Your RV?
Campsites are often in wooded areas and tree limbs can scratch expensive RV paint. When you arrive at your campsite, check to see if you might need to cut any tree branches that may be hanging in the way. You shouldn’t do any major trimming, but cutting a few branches out of the way is normally ok.
6. Extension Poles for Cleaning
Most of the cleaning tools you will buy for your RV will come with threaded ends on them. The reason is that you can purchase extension poles to screw into the ends to let you reach the top of your RV without getting out a ladder.
7. Same Batteries for All Tools and Backup Batteries
Our RV friends came up with this suggestion and it is a good one! Everyone carries a few tools in their RV like power screwdrivers or drills.
When purchasing your tools, try to buy the same brand name and check to see that they use the same type of charging batteries. Also, buy a second battery for your tools and keep it charged. It never fails that just when you need to use a tool, the battery is dead! Having a backup charged battery always comes in handy.
8. Battery Jumper Cables
We learned the hard way to always carry a set of jumper cables. Our tow car battery needed a jump and while there was someone that could provide us with a jump, we didn’t have the cables. Now we always carry a set. They don’t take up much room, are lightweight and inexpensive.
9. Handheld Small Vacuum
Sometimes it’s easier to use a handheld vacuum to clean. If you travel with pets like we do, there’s always a bit of dog hair floating around!
We found a great one made by Black & Decker that works on pet hair. The battery lasts a long time and the pet hair extension is quite powerful.
10. Small Wet-Dry Vacuum
While we love our little B&D handheld vacuum, it doesn’t work for wet spills. We found a little one-gallon wet/dry vacuum that works great. Why carry 2 vacuums? The little indoor handheld one works better on pet hair than the wet vacuum. So if you have the room as we do, both come in handy.
11. Duct Tape
There are so many uses for duct tape! There‘s always room for carrying at least one roll. It’s cheap, and small and you can use it for quick repairs until you get home. One of the best examples we can share about how duct tape helped save one of our RV trips was when our windshield privacy shade failed. The shade motor quit working and the windshield shade was in the down position, so we couldn’t see out of the windshield. Duct tape to the rescue! We manually rolled the shade up out of the way and then used duct tape to secure it until we got home and could properly repair it.
12. Museum Putty– Easiest Way To Secure Items In Your RV
Tired of having to pack away items on your RV countertops every time you travel? We don’t have to!
We get this question frequently! Why don’t we need to clear our RV countertops to prevent things from flying around as we travel? It’s a simple solution called Museum Putty!
What is Museum Putty?
It’s a clever idea originally developed as protection against earthquakes! It is a putty that you stick to the bottom of objects and then set them in place. It doesn’t damage the countertops or objects, is removable and reusable and it is cheap! One popular brand that we buy is called Quake hold and we can attest that it definitely works!
13. Zip Ties, Wire Ties, or Cable Ties
Zip ties also known as Cable or Wire ties are another inexpensive item that you can carry in your RV that doesn’t take up much room and have loads of uses. Plus, you can buy them in packages of multiple sizes and some are even removable.
Even though the name implies they are just for wires, we have used them for many other reasons. They are a type of fastener that you can wrap around things to keep them in place and neat. One of the ways we use them is to wrap them around our water hoses when we roll them up after unhooking from a campsite.
14. Velcro Straps
Velcro Straps should be carried in every RV! Another very inexpensive item that can save you more money than you will spend purchasing them. You can wrap them through refrigerator door handles to keep them from flying open while traveling in your RV. Do you have a cabinet door that doesn’t secure properly? Use a velcro strap to keep it closed!
Want to keep your RV door open, bundle some fishing poles or keep cords neatly in place? Use a velcro strap. They are removable, reusable and cheap.
15. Bungee Cords
Remember the first item we mentioned in this article- a tarp? We use bungee cords to wrap around our tarp and keep it neatly in place. That’s not the only thing that bungee cords are good for though. Pretty much anything you want to secure or bundle can be done with a bungee cord, plus they are easy to remove and reattach.
One clever idea we have seen is to use bungee cords to secure things on shelves by stringing a bungee cord across the front edge. That gave us the idea to attach bungee cords to the bottom of the cabinet where we keep our wine glasses. Then we just slide the stems under the cord and it holds them in place without breakage while we travel!
That’s it for our 15 strange things you should take with you in your RV! What more RV Tips and Tricks?
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