10 ESSENTIAL TIPS For NEW RV Owners!

hey everyone my name is david and i'm jenny and rving has exploded in popularity this year so we know that there are a ton of new rvers out there probably yourself who are looking for the essential tips on what they need to know before hitting the road so we've made a list for the top 10 items for new rvers the first tip we have for you guys is a list of all the bare essential items you're going to need before your first rv trip one thing we caution new rvers about is how easy it is to just buy way too many items stuffing all of your storages full of unnecessary equipment when you first start rving so what we advise is to just get the bare necessities go out on your first few trips with those and as you become more experienced at rving you'll find out you know some of the other items that aren't necessary aren't necessarily required but would make rving more enjoyable so the bare essential items you're going to need before your first trip out is a sewer hose a drinking water safe hose an inline water filter a water pressure regulator an inline surge protector an electrical plug adapter that is either 30 amp to 15 amp or 50 amp to 15 amp depending on the service of your rv wheel chocks and a good set of levelers we recommend anderson levelers just because they're so easy to use as opposed to the stacking type but if you don't want those then the stacking type levelers will work as well and there will be links to all of these items in the video description below so if you haven't picked up any of them for yourself then you can go ahead and check out those links and get everything you need and another little tidbit of information for you is your life is going to be a lot easier if instead of getting one huge drinking water hose like a 50 foot or even a 100 foot drinking water hose if you think you're going gonna need that instead break that up into 25 foot lengths of hose when we first hit the road we had a 50 foot length and it was just so hard to manage and pack away we broke that up into two 25 foot hoses so much easier another tip for new rvers is to create yourself a setup and a tear down checklist you're also going to want to make sure that you do a walk through before you leave any campsite when creating these checklists make sure that you take your time to write down every step that you know that you need to do and make sure that they're in the appropriate order for example if you are making your setup checklist make sure that one of the things up near the top is that you have your chocks down first we have heard many horror stories from other full-time rvers who they went to detach their trailer or their fifth wheel from their tow vehicle and they forgot to put the chalks down and it rolled or it smacked in the truck or something along those lines and obviously that is an absolutely horrifying circumstance so you're going to want to make sure that not only do you have everything that you need to do but they're also in the correct order but a tear down checklist is just as important you're going to want to make sure that the things listed on there are things like make sure all the windows are closed because trust me david and i have left a campsite with a window open and then the inside of our rv is covered in dust when we get to our next spot you're also going to want to have things on there like making sure that all your stabilizers are up that you haven't forgotten anything outside at your campsite before you go that you're not missing anything or that something isn't off that should be off these are all things that you want to make sure are on your checklists but to be ultra extra sure you're gonna want to do a walkthrough before you leave when we leave a campsite no matter where it is i will walk through or walk around the outside of the rig make sure that everything is attached to the awnings rolled in all the way that the windows are closed and david will do a walk through inside to make sure that everything that could possibly bounce around is nice and secure my next piece of advice for you guys is to try before you buy there are a ton of rv rental businesses that you can rent an rv first before buying one and what that's going to do for you is it's going to really help you hammer down the exact type of rv that you want you know there's travel trailers fifth wheels class a b c and there's a ton of little things that you can pick and choose about each individual type of rv and so it's really hard to know exactly what you want and what is going to fit your style of rving best before you actually give it a try renting an rv for a weekend is only going to cost a few hundred dollars whereas buying an rv is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars potentially so it's a small price to pay to know that you're gonna be happy with that purchase another newbie tip we have for you is to shop until you drop seriously david and i spent four months minimum i really don't remember but it was at least four months going to different rv dealers and walking through all the different layouts that they have so that we could not only narrow down the type of rb rv that we wanted but the type of layout that we wanted as well some of you that have been looking for rvs or are looking for rvs currently you may notice that there are so many different layouts and besides that depending on the type of rv you have there are even more layouts depending on that type of rv so our best advice we have for you which i wish that we had gotten more of this on film is going to an rv dealer no matter where it is and at least looking through the rvs that they have there that doesn't mean that you have to buy one from them it just means that it will give you a better idea of what you will like for the long term when you're going out to these rv dealerships just know that you're probably going to be approached by a salesman of some sort and some of them may use high pressure sales tactics and just keep your cool walk through the rvs because it is a lot more important for you to know which layout you want be completely 100 on board with that layout and be ready to buy before going to an rv dealership to actually buy one if you are pressured by an rv salesman to buy one that you maybe were only like 90 sure that you wanted there's a chance that you might not like it in the long run so be patient when selecting your rv and take your sweet time another tip for you is that you are absolutely going to want to weigh your rig at a cat scale which can be found at many of the major truck stops like a loves or a flying j the reason this is so important is because every motorhome travel trailer and fifth wheel has a gvwr that cannot be exceeded on our travel trailer there's a sticker on the front driver side that shows the gvwr as well as the maximum cargo capacity of our trailer if that weight limit is exceeded then we would risk bending the axles on our trailer and we would be greatly increasing our risk for a tire blowout when you go to weigh it make sure to have your rig loaded up with everything you plan on going camping with and also have your water holding tanks completely full so that this is sort of the worst case scenario as far as weight is concerned a tip that we're sharing from experience is to try and do a shakedown trip if you can before hitting the road that means going out somewhere nearby setting up tearing down all that good stuff make sure that everything works in your rv nothing falls apart as you drive down the road those are all things that some people might worry about and we actually ended up experiencing that at the second ever campsite we made it to the tongue jack on our trailer broke and we were in the middle of nowhere and the only spot that we had calling signal was in the middle of the forest road that david had to stand in while talking to somebody who said that they couldn't hear him very well and somehow we still were able to get it fixed but if we had done a shakedown trip or two nearby before we ever hit the road this is a problem that we would have found very close by and probably where we had signal once you've done a shakedown trip or two it's also a good idea to stay kind of in the area where your home base is at go out just a couple of days stay in a state park rv park whatever so that you can get used to operating your rv driving it around backing it into a spot setting up tearing down all of that good stuff so being closer to a home base is an excellent idea another tip is to practice maneuvering your rig in an open parking lot before you take it out on any sort of long trip this is especially important for travel trailer and fifth wheel owners who aren't used to towing yet because you're definitely going to get into a situation where you're going to need to back up your trailer or fifth wheel and backing up is not as intuitive as driving around forwards is so it's good to get into a wide open parking lot where there's not going to be any risk of bashing into parked cars or you know light poles be very cognizant of what's around you but you know use that time to practice backing up especially and if you are towing a travel trailer or fifth wheel an excellent tip that was taught to me by a fellow rver when we were first on the road is if you hold your steering wheel at the very bottom then whatever direction you turn it in while backing up that's the direction that the back end of your trailer is going to go so if you want your trailer to go like this turn the wheel this way it just made it a lot easier for me and you know got rid of that like oh how which way do i turn the wheel to maneuver it this way or that way as a newbie rver something that you're going to need to be mentally prepared for is for things on your rv to break or things to go wrong on your rv these things are going to happen pretty often not gonna lie we've had a lot of things go wrong on our rv our awning right now is one of them which we're going to have to patch up and replace and there are numerous other things that have also gone wrong on our rv now we heavily use our rv and not everyone does that but even as a new rver you will find that little things here and there are definitely going gonna go wrong and what you need to do is just know that it's okay there are a lot of things in an rv that are cheap to replace there are also some things on an rv that are going to be a lot more expensive to replace but for the most part it's just important that you stay calm and the most important time to stay calm is when you're out camping chances are you're going to figure out that something has failed or something will break while you're out camping either on vacation or spending time with your family at a weekend getaway and the most important thing for you to know is to just continue to enjoy your vacation if it's not a major critical repair that needs done right then and there there's really no point in stressing about it it can get fixed later and if it is something that you need to fix right away a campground is normally pretty close to someone that can help you out and our next tip is to take time to learn how to properly maintain your rv there are many systems in your rv that have a routine maintenance schedule that you need to perform to keep them working properly such as the wheel bearings on your axles or the anode rod in your water heater if you neglect these systems and don't perform the regular maintenance then it will result in damage and costly repairs that are going to be much more expensive than if you would have just done the routine maintenance in the first place and performing that routine maintenance is gonna help avoid the situations that jenny just talked about with having major breakdowns when you're on vacation and the last piece of advice we have for you guys is to just take in as much general rving information as possible and the way that we did that when we were new to rving is we just watched a ton of youtube videos and if you check out our channel you're going to find out that we have a lot of videos that are full of great information but it's not just us there are a lot of other great rving youtube channels out there and blog posts on the web so we hope that the tips in this video have been helpful for all of you new rvers out there and we will see you next time [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Fate Unbound

Views: 67,202

Keywords: rv, full, time, rving, rver, full time rv, full time rving, full timing, rv life, rv living, full time rv life, full time rv living, fate, unbound, fate unbound, full time rv couple, vlog, video blog, new, new rv, new rv owner, new rv owners, newbie, noobie, rv newbie, rv noobie, tips, essential, essential tips, need to know, should know, 10 ESSENTIAL TIPS For NEW RV Owners!, travel trailer, camper, motorhome, fifth wheel, 5th wheel

Id: VAIat3VgqSQ

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020