Suffering with Travel Anxiety in an RV

do you lay in bed worried the night before you move your RV well I have some RV travel day stress relievers next welcome to the channel I'm Liz I'm a full-time rver I've been traveling the country for the last four years and before that I was a full-time wedding photographer with my own business that job sure taught me a lot about stress and in my time of traveling now in an RV I've met a lot of people who say travel day stress is just sucking the joy out of RV life so in this video I'm going to share some tips with you in reducing travel day stress and I want to thank you for subscribing you may know I'm on a mission to hit a hundred thousand subscribers so thank you for getting me closer each day I was staying in a campground in Washington state and I wanted to check out this KOA that was down the road by a couple miles so I drove over there and as I got closer to the campground I could see that there was a major construction going on in front of it all the streets were torn up there was no signs I couldn't figure out how to get in the campground and a little ways ahead of me was a brand new Class A motorhome with a brand new jeep that they were flat Towing and I could see that they couldn't figure it out either well they started to move and they went down this Lane and I was a good bit behind them but I started to follow the next thing you know they slammed on the brakes and then they put the motorhome in Reverse now if you know anything about flat Towing you should never reverse you can do some serious damage to your vehicle well this guy was so stressed out that he was losing it so that brings me to my first tip stress is caused by three main things one a feeling of uncertainty of just not knowing what's going to happen two feeling not prepared like you don't have what you need to know to handle what's coming next and three not enough time like you feel rushed you're trying to do too much in too little time a few days before travel it's a good idea to call the campground that you're headed to now this doesn't matter if you've been there before because things could change construction Could Happen ask them the correct direction to approach the campground the correct entrance with your big rig also confirm your reservation make sure that the site that they have you down for is big enough for your rig and this is why you call a few days ahead because if they've lost your reservation or if they have you in the wrong site you don't want to find that out at the end of a travel day also do some map planning make sure that you route that map so that you're not going under any low bridges if you have to stop and get fuel during your travel day look on Google Earth to make sure that you can find a gas station that's big rig friendly a real biggie is checking the weather if there's high winds or heavy rain you don't want to travel and so by knowing a few days in advance you might change your reservations now you do want to check the weather on the entire length of your trip just to make sure like if you're going through a pass that there aren't any high winds on that portion of your trip by doing it a few days in advance you'll reduce that stress and you give yourself enough time to change plans if you need to now there's a campground that I've stayed at a few times it's really big doesn't have sewer hookups and it's notorious for dump station lines every morning I'm talking over an hour long I'm going to be staying there again this summer and my plan is the day before in the afternoon when no one's at the dump station I'm going to pack everything up and go over there and dump that way on the Travel day I don't have to start it out waiting in a line line that could be over an hour long so this brings us to the liquids section of the video and that is take care of your liquids of course if you have a sewer hookup then you'll want to go ahead and empty your gray and black right there in the site but if you're going to a boondocking site where there's no water you may want to fill your fresh water tank also check your propane levels you may want to get that filled a day or two before travel so it's one less thing to do on the road same thing with fueling up go ahead and go to the gas station the day before and fill your truck now if you have a motor home if there's any reason for you to leave the site before your travel day go ahead and do it so you can fuel up some people will make a special trip and fuel up just so they don't have to do it on a travel day when I had my fifth wheel I was hitching up getting ready to leave a campground and I had some neighbors that came over to say goodbye this is pretty common in campgrounds you know we were talking and saying goodbye and hoping we would see each other down the road and then a little bit later as I'm driving I'm thinking did I close the ball to my hitch because if I didn't that could be a serious problem I actually could hit a bump and lose my fifth wheel I pulled over and it turned out I had not closed the ball this is why I think it's so important to have a list write down everything you do in preparation for travel even if it's something that you've never forgotten before just have it down on that list now a lot of people are anti-list and I have to say the list is a great way to reduce stress because all those things that are in your head that you know you have to do you just put it on the paper just put it down on that paper so you don't have to worry about it now I have mine all typed up and it's in one of those page protectors and I use a dry erase and just mark it on there now some people will have the list on their phone and I'm not a big fan of that because I think it's too easy to check something that you didn't mean to plus your phone's falling asleep and you're waking it up each time to to enter that in so I like how having it on the paper and knowing that I haven't actually checking it off each time but however you do the list that works for you it's so important the more you do something the more you think you've done it when you really haven't now while we're talking about lists do as much as you can on that list the day before travel you want to leave your travel day for driving that's it to start the day packing everything up can really wear you out so do as much as you can the day before I start my pre-pack with an inspection I look under the rig I check the tires I want to make sure there's no bulging in the tires I also check the tire pressure on each tire for me I just turn on my TPMS but however you want to do it just go ahead and check your tire pressure the day before I also inspect the roof I make sure there's no acorns or branches on the slide Toppers and make sure that that's ready to go as far as pre-packing I'll fold up my camping chairs and put them away I'll fold up the patio mat any decorations I have out any lights tire covers all those I'll go ahead and put away the day before I'll do the same thing inside packing as much as possible now another thing that I do is I prepare the cab for travel and I highly recommend this whether you have a motorhome or a truck is to make sure it's ready for travel if you do have a motor home you may have piled some stuff up there in the seats or the seats may be turned around so go ahead and clear everything out and then have some snacks and water available Kleenex paper towels and I like to have backup directions so I've either printed out the directions or I have a map because we all know that technology like our GPS can fail at the worst moments and another thing that I do before travel is clean the windshield so the night before you want to go to bed early try and get some good rest wake up have a good breakfast and now now hopefully you don't have a lot on your plate so your travel day is less stressful give yourself a reward at the end of the travel day something to look forward to whether it's sitting out on the patio kicking your feet up with your favorite beverage whatever it is you want to reward yourself for getting through that day and minimizing stress to recap stress comes from uncertainty feeling unprepared and also feeling like you don't have enough time we've handled all three areas in this video by doing some pre-trip planning taking care of liquids having a list and doing as much pre-packing the day before as you can if you've enjoyed this video please like subscribe and share and let me know your favorite stress reducing tips for RV travel days as always these are exciting times to push past fear build confidence and live amazing

Channel: Liz Amazing

Views: 45,291

Keywords: RV life, Fulltime RV living, Travel day stress, Driving camper, Driving motorhome, stress, Travel stress

Id: -Wn8raUe5I4

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 10 2023