Note: This post is to help with your routine for getting the inside of your trailer ready to hit the road. Not the outside – that’s my husband’s job. This would be the routine you implement when you are just getting ready to leave the house or the campsite. See my earlier blog posts for setting up the inside of the trailer kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, etc for that information.
Of course, many of the things I do to prepare for takeoff is because I made a mistake in the past – like forgetting to latch a door and while we were on the road the door came off its rollers. Things like that. After 17 years of RVing, I believe I’ve made enough mistakes to make me a bit of an expert on getting the trailer or RV ready to roll. Here’s my routine. I hope it helps you. For reference, we have a 5th wheel with three slideouts. I’ll write this as if we’re leaving a campsite in the morning.
Kitchen/ living area
- Finish my coffee – one should never attempt to get ready to roll without being properly caffeinated. If you’re one of those healthy decaffeinated all the time people, go ahead and skip this step. I’m not one of those decaffeinated types.
- Wash up all of the breakfast dishes – and put them away. Don’t forget to empty out the coffee pot. It’s pretty gross to come back to old grounds in your pot.
- Wipe down the counters and put anything on the counters away securely in the cupboards.
- Shove my throw pillows into the dishes cupboard – This is a fairly new step for me. I had never done this (even though it had been suggested), until recently. Our 5th wheel has a pretty frosted glass cupboard door where I put the dishes. One time, the dishes crashed into the glass and scratched it up. In another rig, one of my Corell plates hit the cupboard door with such force that it slid out and shattered all over the floor. Shoving the throw pillows on the shelf between the dishes and the door keeps all of this mayhem from happening. Note: if you have a dog in your trailer, you might want to lint-roll the pillows before putting them in the cupboard. Another thing we learned the hard way …
- Take out the trash – if you’re just going to another campsite, this step may not be necessary.
- Put the refrigerator bars in – Our refrigerator has these built in and we have to remember to set them up. If you don’t have refrigerator bars, I highly recommend them as a way to keep things from sliding and falling out when you’re on the road or when you open the door. You can get them at Camping World or Amazon. They also make cupboard bars that do the same thing in the cupboards if you’re having problems with sliding in your cupboards.
- Put everything that’s loose away in the living area.
- Eject any DVDs or games from your consoles and put them away.
- Secure your TV for travel. – Ours has a Velcro strap.
- Unplug any devices and stow your cords.
- Wipe down table, end tables, etc.
Bathroom
- Change the towels and put out clean ones – Especially if it’s the end of the trip. It makes it feel less depressing because I’m prepping my trailer for our next trip.
- Put away anything on the counters or that’s loose in the shower.
- Clean the shower – If we’re going to another campsite, this is one that can be skipped.
- Clean the sink and counter area.
- Clean the toilet – If someone is outside taking care of the tanks, wait until the black tank has been dumped for this. Then, remember to add the toilet chemicals and step on the flusher to add a few gallons of fresh water into the black tank.
- Latch any doors that have latches including the shower door.
Bedroom
- Secure anything that’s loose
- If there’s a TV, secure it – In our old trailer, we had a latch thing we had to put in place.
- Make the bed – Change the sheets depending on where we’re going next and how long the trip has been. If it was a quick weekender, I’ll just change the pillow-cases. If we’re just going to another campsite and it’s only been a few nights on the road, I’ll just make the bed without changing the sheets.
- Latch any doors that have latches
- Close doors with hinges
Now the floors
- Sweep out under the slides with no carpet – Two of our slides have no carpet and I run the broom under sweeping for little things that can get stuck under them. Getting things stuck under slides can be a costly mistake and can damage the slides or the floor.
- Vacuum the floors and carpets – We have dogs so, sweeping the trailer is futile. The dog hair just transplants itself into another part of the trailer. I vacuum. Of course, if you’re boondocking, this could be a challenge without electricity and some of your floor clean-up will have to wait. Having a Swiffer might be a help if you can’t vacuum. We almost never stay anywhere without electrical hookups.
- Vacuum under the slide piece of carpet – Our living area has carpet under the dinette and the theater seats. I lift up the carpet that hangs over onto the floor and moves with the slide and run the vacuum under this. This will prevent anything like a small pebble, dog kibble, or whatever from getting stuck under there while the slides come in and prevent floor and slide damage.
- If there is still dog hair floating around, Swiffer.
- Mop if necessary – I really hate mopping even though I do it in the easiest way possible. I use Bona hardwood cleaner (even though the floor is vinyl – it still works). This is spray that you spray on the floor and mop up with a mop that has a washable microfiber end. It’s really easy and does a great job.
After a visual sweep of all of your rooms double checking that you haven’t left anything out:
- Put some snacks in a handy place so you can reach them on the road – I hate it when I forget this step!
- Put some drinks in the truck for the road
- Grab whatever you’ll need in the truck on the road – Purse, phone, sunglasses, magazine … whatever.
- Put the dogs in the truck
- Pull the slides in
- Put the steps up
- Lock the door
- Use the “big potty” – That’s what we call the RV park bathroom. You don’t want to use your RV bathroom because A) you just locked the door and B) you just cleaned it.
- Help the driver hitch up as needed – I am in charge of helping pick up chalks and leveling blocks and I also am in charge of doing a visual check on the trailer. I check to make sure the cord is plugged into the truck, the emergency cable is on, all the windows are shut, antennas are down, etc.
Hit the road and have a great trip!
Note: This is just our routine. My husband could write his own blog post about what all he does outside. This list is just how I do things on the inside. I hope you found it helpful.
Next Trailer Girl blog post – Too Much of a Good Thing – RVing Burnout
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