RV Trip Planning and Tips for Beginners
Be sure to read the last Pro Tip. This tip could save your marriage.
The 3-3-3 Rule:
Drive no more than 300 miles a day, arrive at your campsite by 3 p.m., and stay for at least three nights. This helps prevent fatigue and allows time to set up, relax, and explore.
Practice driving:
Before your first trip, practice turning, backing up, and using your mirrors in your specific RV.
Familiarize yourself with the RV:
Learn how to operate all systems, including water (fresh, gray, and black tanks), electricity, propane, and appliances. This is crucial for troubleshooting issues on the road.
Bring essential tools:
Pack items like wheel chocks, a leveling kit, and hoses for water and sewer hookups.
Arrive before dark:
Give yourself plenty of daylight to find your campsite and set up without feeling rushed.
PRO TIP:
Driving, in general, is a stressful endeavor. Add multiple people (and a flatulent dog or two) in a confined area for multiple hours, and you could have a recipe for disaster. With safety and your waning precious personal sanity as your prime motivators for the trip, you, the driver, must assert dominance early and often. Is your spouse telling you how to drive or making nonsensical noises in traffic in between looking up from her Kindle to tell you what you're doing wrong? Have you been on the road for 15 minutes since your last pee stop and now your 7-year-old daughter has to pee again? 11 and 10-year-old sons won't stop asking how many more minutes or what else there is to eat? Consider dropping any offending parties off 5-10 miles before your final destination (hopefully not like the movie series) and have them run (run, not walk - this is very important for bringing down energy levels and combative behaviors - remember, physically exhausted children are compliant children) the remainder of the journey. This stress-reduction tactic is always most effective when no advanced notice is provided. Remember, empty threats are for weak people. (For children under 18, please check local laws for legal abandonment definitions. I am not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to portray one online. But if you drop minors off with an offending parent or guardian, it's probably perfectly legal. Probably.)
Multiple problems can be solved using this Pro Tip:
It conditions your passengers to accept that you, the driver, are in complete control and that you do not negotiate with terrorists. (Side pro tip: keep a pee bottle handy for anyone who challenges you.)
It sets the overall tone for the trip. Letting everyone know early on what you're capable of is key to making your expectations known, understood, and respected. Honestly, respect is all we want here.
This time alone will give you precious time to find your spot, navigate your rig into said spot without the useless help of a dyslexic spotter, and allow you to set everything up uninterrupted and in total silence unless you talk to yourself like some of us do.
Be sure to have a nice comfortable chair out for your spouse and maybe a cold beverage. If everyone ran hard enough, they should all be too tired to give you more grief at this point. If not, congratulations, your family is in excellent physical condition and consider extending it to 10-15 miles next trip.
I hope this has been helpful. Godspeed.
- Tom
