By Cheri Sicard
Travel days in your RV can be hectic and stress-filled. The team from Today is Someday produced a video of practical, actionable tips to make RV travel days easier.
In the video, the team had a 1,200-mile trip ahead of them, so what better time to focus on RV travel day tips? In addition to the tips in the video, they recommend working off a checklist so you don’t forget things. This is the checklist they use.
The tips are interspersed within the video of this trip that the couple virtually takes you along on. There’s some gold in there, but this could have been edited into a shorter video.
Nonetheless, here are some of the practical tips they give to make RV travel days easier. A lot of these tips involve being proactive. In other words, you are preventing potential problems before they get the chance to happen.
Some practical RV travel tips
#1 Safety: Check your tires and don’t forget your toad tires too. Also, check the propane shut off; check the roof; do a light and brake check, etc.
#2 Plan your fuel stops before leaving: Personally, I find this to be a bit overkill. It is not something I have ever done on the road; save fueling up before remote areas. But maybe if you are driving a rig as large as the one in the video, or if you need diesel fuel, it could make sense. Since they needed to fill propane, it did make sense in the case of the tip in the video. Watch to discover the apps they use to find fuel stops.
#3 Plan your overnight stops: This one I always try to do because there’s nothing like being tired after a day of driving and not being able to find a place to park for the night. The team in the video uses Harvest Hosts for a lot of travel days, as do I. It’s hard to beat the deal of a safe place to park that is usually attached to something interesting like a winery, brewery restaurant, or farm. And, unlike boondocking in Walmart or Cracker Barrel parking lots, there’s no problem opening the slides and getting comfortable.
They suggest using Google Earth to check your overnight stops in advance, just so you are not greeted by any unexpected surprises. Again, I don’t do this. But if you are driving a super large rig, it makes good sense. Before leaving the next morning, it’s time to check in with the trusty checklist again before moving.
#4: Do a few quick walk-around checks while en route: Every time you stop for fuel or snacks is a good time to do a quick walk-around visual inspection of the rig, hitch, etc., just to make sure everything is as it should be.
#5 Monitor the weather: It’s a good idea to check the weather where you stop and where you are going in case you have to adjust plans.
#6 Always check inside doors before moving: Check that all doors and cabinets are well latched before moving. Things can fall out and doors can break if not properly closed.
#7 Check inside cabinets and fridge: Always secure items so they don’t fall out or break.
#8 Choose your numbers: By this, they say to choose your schedule in advance. For instance 4, 4, 4: four hours of driving, stop by 4 p.m., no more than 400 miles. This gives you goals and an anticipated reward.
#9 Have a plan for meals: Having a plan for what you will eat when you stop will make everything easier. Here’s one I make often.
What are your RV travel day tips? Be sure to drop them in the comments below.
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RVT1226
Absolutely we know where we are stopping for lunch and/or diesel as well as having the entire day’s route mapped BEFORE leaving the campsite. Makes everything go so much smoother. Fuel stop planning includes checking Google maps satellite view for maneuvering our 40 foot RV plus toad. (No backing up) If we are driving separately for ANY distance, we fire-up the walkie talkies.
MUST be at next overnight site before twilight and set up before dark, absolute.
Total unit walk-around at every stop when on the road & include checking the tow-hitch connection. We might adjust plans at lunch stop, knowing how much farther we can go before sunlight dims.
Thank you for sharing the video and reviewing its main points, Cheri! Most of those we do, or don’t need doing, given what we do when stopping during a travel day. We filled the fresh water tank and emptied the waste tanks before beginning our last leg of our Alaska trip. We overnight in a pull-through site to avoid unhooking the towed vehicle and connect only electric. Departure mornings are quite simple if we only need to retract the jacks and slides, and disconnect from the power pedestal. We used RV Life’s trip planner to break the days into similar mileages so long as a campground near the interstate had available pull-through sites. We should get home after 2483 miles in 6 days …
… (metro Portland, Oregon to metro Chattanooga, Tennessee). Have a great week and safe travels!
We start looking for gas stations when we get to half a tank. So we have plenty of time/distance to find a convenient large enough station. No stress and we are usually ready for a break at half a tank anyway.