My husband and I love RVing! We’ve both become quite comfortable with our RV routines, too. Maybe I should say, “too comfortable.” Perhaps it’s time to switch things up and discover the benefits of trading RV tasks.
Mine and his
Chores. RV tasks. Routine work in and around the RV must be done. What’s interesting is that we’ve never talked about who should do what. Not one discussion or workflow chart was ever drawn to show who is responsible for specific chores. My husband just automatically takes our RV trash to the campground bins. I routinely vacuum the RV floors and do the dishes. He takes care of emptying the black and gray tanks. I pack, unpack, and repack for our RV trips. I make the menus and he grills.
Nothing wrong
Neither of us is unhappy with our current arrangement. We both know the other’s expectations and work at meeting them. We’ve probably carried over some of our “duties” from our stix-n-brix household routines. And there’s nothing wrong with that! I’ve just been wondering lately if we should switch things up a bit. Maybe there are unknown benefits of trading RV tasks. There’s only one way to find out, right?
Trading places
After presenting this idea, my husband (bless his heart!) agreed to switch tasks with me during our final RV trip of the season. We knew that at the end of this trip, we’d winterize our RV. In the meantime, we’d trade places for RV responsibilities.
What we learned
- Skill development. Some of the most significant benefits of switching RV responsibilities were the new skills we both developed. I learned how to empty, clean, and deodorize our RV tanks. My husband learned how to make menus and use leftovers. We both learned new skills and increased competence with specific RV tasks.
- Appreciation. Trading RV chores helped both of us gain a better understanding of the effort and time required for each task. This insight helped me better appreciate my husband’s efforts. He gained empathy for the jobs I had previously done, and we both got a better picture of what each task involved.
- Communication and teamwork. In order for our “responsibility switch” to work, we had to communicate our procedures and expectations. Talking through these things and explaining what to do helped build teamwork. (It takes teamwork to make the dream work, right?)
- Fresh perspective. Chores can become monotonous and tiresome. Trading responsibilities injected variety and interest into our daily routines. We both felt more positive and motivated to tackle our respective chores.
Best of all
Perhaps the greatest lesson from our experiment is that we both now know for certain that we can do this. If I want to take our RV for a “girls’ weekend” with friends, I know what RVing requires and I know how to do each chore. My husband feels the same. Will we keep the “chore-switching experiment” going? Hmm. We’ll both need to think about that.
Would you ever consider switching RV responsibilities? Tell me in the comments.
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I don’t know how many times I’ve said, “Please let me do it this time. If something happens to you I still want to go camping.” Cross-train. It’s a good thing.
Yes, we both know how to hook up the car, drive the motorhome, empty the holding tanks and do the dishes!
Thank you, Gail! We sometimes inadvertently do this; trade a few tasks. It arises when one of us is distracted by something non-routine. It is a small set, but serves some of your purpose.
We share our duties to a point, DW does the cooking, I do the dishes. She does most of the inside with me helping. I do most of the outside with her help occasionally. When we had our motorhome I tried to get her to learn how to drive in case something did happen to me, she said that was the reason she took good care of me and refused to get behind the wheel. That didn’t work for me when I asked her to service the unit, said she wasn’t going to crawl under the dirty thing. Lol
We both cook and wash dishes. She hates how I do laundry (apparently there is some arcane process about when to follow and when to ignore the clothing manufactures’ care labels). But when it comes to the maintenance of the systems – it’s too arcane for her and all mine.
I recently signed up for a travel insurance policy whereby if one of us in incapacitated (mainly me), the policy will see to our care and get us home (they do not pay our medical bills, just coordinate it). They will even get our TT & tow vehicle back to our home. We do travel a lot, but still have a physical domicile address.