12 Tips for First Time RV Owners

hi everyone welcome to the RV Atlas I'm Stefanie I'm Jeremy and we are the hosts of the RV Atlas podcast where writers over at the RV Atlas comm and we're also the authors of Cu at the campground go pick up your copy wherever you like to buy your books today we are here as soon as Jeremy stop spinning his buck I love this book whoo we are going to talk to you about 12 tips for first-time RV and they're gonna be 12 quick tips quick tips we're gonna be quick we're gonna guys there's there's some golden wisdom here we've basically screwed everything up but somewhere along the line and we started as new RV owners there's some hard-won wisdom here and if you're anywhere like the first year of RV ownership I think there's a lot of really good stuff for you and if you're just buying your RV this is where this is where it's at all right this is where you guys get to learn from all of our mistakes right tip 1 we think that you should camp close to home on your first RV trip if not your first couple of RV trips then if anything goes wrong you can go back home if you need to run and get something from Walmart or camping world or Cabela's or wherever it might be you know where all those stores are basically yeah if you can't get the furnace going at night and it's cold you could hypothetically go back home it's a comfort it's about convenience it's not about having fun necessarily those first few trips but you will have fun anyway well you're just learning how to use your RV and it's gonna lead to less user errors and a better RV experience dandy look at those first few weekends it's just learning the new Rick second tip okay we think you should reserve a campsite at a private campground not a public campground so we think for your first couple trips you shouldn't do a state park a national park or a county park even if you think that's beautiful even if you think that's the kind of RVer you're going to be because you like huge sites and privacy and really inexpensive sites we think a private campgrounds good for those first few trips because they'll be somebody there to help you there'll be somebody there to help you back into your site if something mechanical breaks or you can't figure out how to get something turned on my water there'll be a campground manager there now unfortunately state and national parks are really understaffed and most rangers are not RV owners anyway now so they're really not gonna be there to back you in to your site or to help you if something's broken it's on you no can do the gorgeous State Park and National Park campgrounds later triac a way or Jellystone or a mom-and-pop owned campground for the first couple trips all right now our third tip is for your first trip why don't you consider reserving a pull-through site now you might be saying what the heck are you talking about what's a pull-through site well there's two basic kind of sites at campgrounds there's backends and pull through and the number one issue that people have as new RV owners is guess what back in in number one issue that veteran RV owners it causes a lot of marriage issues people go to counseling for backing are there generally speaking generally speaking back in sites are prettier because there's often woods behind you pull through sites have a road on either side so if these are two roads a pull through sites gonna go right in the middle of the two roads so you pull in from one road and then when you leave the campground you pull out on another you drop me a comment let me know if that was confusing all right you don't have to back up the trailer and all you get to pull in and pull out you have to go and make a jungle you never have to back up in a both your site now granted they're not always the nicest sites but you can worry about getting the prettiest site later after your first couple minimize the stressors on your first trip get to use you know the RV get to know it and then you can be off the table tip number four divide and conquer during setup and we really used to do this because we had young kids when we bought our first pop-up camper I would set up the RV you take the kids to the playground far far away just get them away from the RV now even if you don't have kids to have set defining jobs that each person does so that you're helping each other you're dividing and conquering and one person is not doing everything but you can also switch later on so that you learn your whole rig it's not like only one person can know how to do certain thing it's just helpful to know whose jobs are Wow or kids who used to just kind of sadly get in the way and stress me out when we were setting up the RV they set up the camp chairs okay they get out the cooler they they have set jobs they put down the stability jack so you know what they on again that kids can have jobs too once they're older but at the beginning just make sure that you remove any distraction newsflash kids can have jobs too okay parents of our generation you can make your kids worse still working on that alright tip number five number five okay and this is where we're going a little crafty and subtle don't be afraid to ask for help at the campground RVs are notoriously helpful people sometimes too helpful but we get into that in a second don't spend two hours trying to get the furnace going okay ask a veteran or VA and we know this because we probably did spend two hours trying to get the heat the furnace going on our pop-up camper years ago and we would have been trying to get it going for hours in the future but a very nice rver came over he showed us this trick and we learned the trick time we learn the gas through the system and we lit our furnace here's a brillar pro tip ask the older generation of or ver for help because they're handier than sex and we just told you to ask for help if you need it but tip number six if you're backing in you know you're past that first couple trips and you want to be in the back in sight everybody's gonna want to help you okay your people are gonna come over they're gonna they're gonna come be crackin beers in their lawn chairs watching you back up there's gonna be ten people with opinions people are gonna be on their walkie-talkies like a newbie on site number ten somebody's gonna like basically remove you from the driver city and try to get in park your rigs I'll do that for you well at that point don't be afraid to say I really want to practice I don't need help I like my wife and I are okay right learning how to do we're learning we're trying not to get a divorce the squad is gonna show up man to back you have you're saying it's it's it's high amusement yes the help that you want and no thank you to help that you don't want alright what's the next step okay tip number seven find great camping buddies we when we first started our vein there was a another teacher at Stephanie school and they just bought a pop-up camper as well so he started to do trips together and it was wonderful because we were great friends with them we had great memories with them but we also helped each other we shared meals together we watched the kids for each other we would help each other with our RVs so if you know somebody that has an arm and towing together and there is safety in numbers on the road it feels like that you can help each other if something goes wrong if you're saying oh how do i I don't have any friends at RVs well maybe you could persuade some of your friends to buy an RV and I'm not kidding we've been doing it free come onto our Facebook group we have a Facebook job the RV Atlas group and just put a post-it and say like I need a friend yeah try to do kept me one but in all seriousness it can really help the newbie to be camping with another family that's also a newbie yeah now number eight please avoid driving at night for the first RV experience that you have we actually avoid driving at night as much as possible if possible and we know it's not always possible and we still drive at night sometimes but we really do try to avoid it first of all it's just not as safe in a very general sense but also if you do break down it's gonna be harder to get somebody to help you if you need a spare tire or you need some odd part or whatever there's just more of a chance that's shops or them so like we have had that issue where we broke down at night and it's really hard to get what we needed or when we broke down at 10 o'clock in the morning and look that's two breakdowns in 10 years so don't break down a lot what's going on number nine okay speaking of breaking down look things are going to break stuff is going to have it especially if you some of you that are are thinking about buying your first RV you might be worried about RV quality and there are real concerns there but you just need to know something will break it's a house on wheels you can't let it ruin a whole trip if something breaks in your RV on a Friday and you're miserable all weekend that's not the right mind hey really is that true honey because I've seen you kind of stress about things like the stereo nah I said we weren't honest my auxilary jack to my stereo broke on a trip and it drove me crazy all weekend I wanted to listen to music but meanwhile I was in a hammock yeah she was in a hammock playing baseball like just don't let some minor thing that breaks get you down you'll deal with it later absolutely all right I love this test is it your favorite is it's connected to the last tip as a new RV owner you're gonna be tempted to bring the RV into the service center every single time something lose handle on a cabinet or even something larger like my sink won't work yeah I recommend not bringing the RV in every single time something small happens because then the RV is gonna be in the shop a lot we batch our service issues and our warranty issues so all wait till there's five or six things that need to be addressed and then I'll bring it at all once because I don't want to lose use of my are base right and that's only during warranty and I'm making smaller it's inoperable or not you're gonna leak you know yeah but if you write crap on the countertop that you didn't see when you did your walkthrough and then you oh I'm gonna bring it in to get serviced you're not gonna have your RV for a week or so yeah and I want to use my RV I remember one time our sink did not work but we still went to Myrtle Beach we did and we just had our entire vacation in Myrtle Beach without our kitchen sink but we had a sink in the bathroom we had an outdoor kitchen we were fine we had a great vacation and then later on we got our be fixed all right tip number 11 join a great Facebook group we've got one we've got one the RV is and it doesn't just have to be our group but it should be our group because everyone's friendly in our group and we'd like it's no creepily we bounce people in how nice so our group's great for newbies the RV Atlas group join a group ask questions don't be shy if you can't figure something out other our viewers will share their wisdom with ya and and the and the good ones out there know they were there once too and they remember that and they won't act like a know-it-all they'll be helpful all right what's our last tip tip number 12 this isn't your favorite breathe relax have fun being a new RV owner there are some stress points because you're learning a whole new way of traveling remember back when you bought your first house and people were talking to you about HVAC and you were like what's that right I can even remember back to even though you're gonna have some issues you're gonna have some problems you're also gonna be on the ride of your life and have the adventure of your lives and you're gonna love RV ownership we really really believe that so take a deep breath if you're stressed out relax and have fun and then also throw us a like if you enjoyed this video if you have any questions drop us a comment we'd be happy to answer them later and please subscribe to our Channel if you like this video all right guys I'm Stephanie I'm Jeremy and we're the authors of see you at the campground this is packed with information for new RV everything you need for a new RV enter we put everything that we have everything they know everything Remo you know about camping this here is right there we have the cap that the campground

Channel: The RV Atlas

Views: 79,196

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Id: HCXjnx8Abhs

Length: 11min 40sec (700 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 20 2019