So, you have your rig and you’re getting ready to pack. How exciting! Isn’t it great not to be packing a suitcase? That is, until you look inside a trailer or RV closet and you wonder how the heck you’re going to pack it. Here are some tricks I’ve learned over the years mostly from closet fails. I hope they are helpful to you. Let me begin by saying we’ve never had a rig with one of those fancy 5th wheel type bedrooms that have a big closet and a dresser. We’ve always had some sort of funky closet situation that we’ve made work.
The picture above is not terribly unlike our current master bedroom. I would used my own, but the room is so small, it’s hard to get a decent picture. This is one hijacked from a trailer ad for a Kodiak trailer (same brand as ours). We’ll use this for our example of a “typical” closet as I’ve seen lots that are similar.
The first problem is, the closets are short. My husband is tall. So, if he wants to pack a dress shirt, the closet is too short for the shirt and it wrinkles at the bottom. So, if he packs a dress shirt (and by dress shirt, I mean something with a collar like a Hawaiian shirt – dressy is a relative term!), he hangs them in our bunk house closet/ coat closet that’s a little longer. If I pack a dress I fold it in half and hang it over the center of a hanger. I usually don’t bother with dresses though. I end up hanging up much more that I would in my closet at home. For instance, I hang up jeans, sweatshirts, etc because there are no drawers. Shorts are a problem if you need to stack them inside of your closet. During the traveling, they tend to fall over. I have been known to hang my shorts on skirt hangers. My family thinks that’s a little OCD, but it works!
Hangers are another problem. When you’re traveling down the road, you create an earthquake. Your clothes slide right off the hangers and make a big heap in the bottom of the closet – very annoying! I have found that the velvet covered hangers help keep clothes in place. You can buy these just about anywhere such as Target, Home Goods, or if you want a lot of them, Costco has a big box for about $10.
We have also had problems with our coat closet on the road. We would arrive at our destination only to find everything had fallen to the bottom of the closet including the hangers. So, we bought some hotel hangers from Amazon. Problem solved! Trailers should just come with these already installed.
Small items like socks and underwear are also a problem if you don’t have drawers. In our old trailer, I put small sterilite drawers in each closet. Our current rig has some storage over the bed and I put baskets over head. You’ll want to measure your storage space and find something that works for you and what you need to store.
Shoes are another problem. I love the show “Big Time RV.” It makes me laugh every time they have ladies on there that talk about bringing lots of shoes on an RV trip! I love shoes just as much as the next gal, but when I’m on an RV trip, my rule of thumb is bring the functional shoes needed for the planned activities (i.e hiking boots, flip flops for the beach, dog walking shoes, etc.). After that, for “outfits”, unless I have a special occasion (rare on an RV trip!), I make sure whatever shoes I bring go with multiple outfits. Stinky shoes can cause major closet problems! All stinky or potentially stinky shoes should ride in the storage under the trailer or use the storage under a dinette seat for things like that. We put our hiking boots, back packs, and trekking poles in the dinette seat … after they air out outside.
Sometimes closets take on a little musty smell. The sneaker balls you can get from stores that sell athletic shoes are a big help. Speaking of stink … let’s talk about dirty laundry. Don’t put it back in your closet! EEEW! We use the under bed storage area (Lots of beds lift up and there’s storage under neath. We had drawers built in to our storage area for the laundry. I don’t love doing laundry on the road. So, when we’re on a longer trip, we fold our dirty laundry so it doesn’t take up too much space. In our old trailer, we had a cool hatch to the underneath storage area that we put our laundry in. We could also send our son in to smash it down when he was little.
When packing our rig, we use collapsable crates. We keep them in the living room at home when we’re on the road and then, unpack with them too. We used to tell the kids they could only pack what fit in their crates. It wasn’t long before they figured out they could make more than one trip to the trailer and fill the crate up two or three times! They also learned, they’d have to crate it all back in and put it away after the trip. At a young age, we gave them packing lists and had them pack themselves. This taught them a lot about packing and being responsible for their own stuff. I won’t say that it was a perfect system. I think we’ve had to stop and buy underwear on the way to our destination for 3 out of 4 of us over the years. I won’t say who forgot their underwear!
I hope this has helped you deal with your weird RV closet. RV closets are weird and not really ideal. Thinking through your wardrobe and storage needs (i.e. do you need someplace to corral your socks and underwear?) and then setting up accordingly will make your camping experience less frustrating where clothes are concerned. I’ll take a weird trailer closet over a suitcase any day!
Next Trailer Girl blog post – How we learned that the awning was the most expensive part of the trailer. A lesson learned the hard way.
Trailer Girl's Guide to Happy Camping 