If you are like we are right now, and are just weekend warriors, there are several things that you need to do every time you get ready to go camping. Let’s go over 10 things that we do to get ready to go camping.

NOTE: Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. Affiliate links, do not affect the price you pay, but will give us a “referral fee” to help with the expenses. 

1 – Figure out where you are going and make reservations

We try to go camping about once a month, more if we are able. With the way that I work, I have a three-day weekend every other weekend so it works out great. One weekend we will go camping, the other weekend that I’m off, we work around the house. Hopefully, we end up choosing the right weekend so that the weather cooperates with us.

The first thing that you have to do when you decide it’s time to get away is to find a place to go and make a reservation. Being that we only have three days without me having to take days off of work, we try to find somewhere that we can get to within five to six hours. Most of the time, camp grounds will have check in times around 2-3pm. That gives us time to get up, eat breakfast and leave by 8am to get there around check in time. 

If you don’t have a campground that you like going to a lot or are like us and like to try different campgrounds very times, there are several ways of finding a campground to goto. Check out our post about Finding Campgrounds to Goto for more information.

2 – Make a menu of what you are going to eat

I know what you might be thinking. You are going camping to relax and not have to worry about what you are going to cook when, or something like that. If it is just two people, then meals aren’t probably that big of a deal. However, if you have kids or a big family, then it is going to be a little more important.

Once you know how many days you are going to be camping for, you will know how many meals you should plan out. We tend to do things a little backwards when we camp. At home, we try to keep breakfast and lunch as an easy meal and then something more filling for supper. When we are camping though, we try to do things we don’t normally do and have a nice hardy breakfast, an easy lunch and then something that our kids can help with or do themselves for supper.

Once you have your meals planned out, make up a grocery list for it and go shopping a day or two before. If you do it shortly before you go camping, you are less likely to use the things that you bought for camping on other meals. Which brings us to our next tip…

3 – Turn on the refrigerator the day before

Don’t ever put cold food into your refrigerator if you just turned it on. It can take a good four to six hours for your refrigerator to get cold. Once it is cooled down, it is ok to put your food in it. You don’t want your food to get to warm and you get sick while on your camping trip.

We recommend buying a RV to 110v adapter and plug in your trailer the day before. If the 110v plug is on at least a 20 amp breaker and there isn’t much else on it, you can use it to power your trailer for the lights and refrigerator. This will not be enough to run the air conditioner or anything big, but it will power the lights and refrigerator. If possible, have a dedicated 30 amp circuit installed in your break box for your camper. This will allow you to 

4 – Check the First Aid Kit to make sure it is fully stocked

While camping is supposed to be fun, it can also be dangerous. Whether it is just a minor cut or a broken leg, you need to be ready to do what you can. When you are getting your RV ready to go camping, make sure that you check your first aid kit. Make sure that any creams or anything else that may have an expiration date is checked. Also make sure that you replace anything that was used. 

Whether you make your own first aid kit or buy one(like this one), go through it and write down what is all in it. While you are going through it check it off on the list showing that it is there so you will know exactly what you need to replace. 

5 – Do a thorough check of the outside of your camper

This is probably one of the most important things in this list. Failing to check on some of the things on the outside of your camper could have serious repercussions on your camping trip. 

Check your tires! Make that each of your tires is aired up to the proper PSI. Check the treads on the tires to make sure they still have plenty of tread on them. Having a blowout while you are driving at highway speeds could cause you to have a severe accident or at the very least do some pretty significant damage to your RV. 

Check your wastewater connections. Make sure that the cap is on the outlet and tightened down. The last thing that you need while your driving down the road is to get pulled over by the police and be accused of dumping waste water down the road. 

6 – Check Propane Levels

Check your propane bottles; verify that all the connections are tight and each bottle is turned off. Some people will say that leaving them on all the time is ok, I would HIGHYLY recommend turning them off. Leaving the tanks on while traveling can be really dangerous. If one of the lines comes loose, or get punctured, propane will fill whatever protective cover you have on them. One small spark is all that is needed to turn a small leak into a major issue!

Are your propane tanksl full or almost empty? How do you check it? Most smaller tanks do not come with gauges, so here are a few ways to check and see how full your propane bottle is.

Use Water

Liquid propane is very cold! Get you a pitcher of warm to hot water and slowly pour it down one side of the tank. After you have dumped all the water, run your hand down the side of the tank and feel where it turned cold. Where it turns cold is the level of you tank.

Weight

Most propane bottles come with two different weights stamped on the side of the bottle. One is Tare Weight(TW) and the other is the Weight Capacity(WC). The TW is weight of the bottle empty. If you happen to have a scale with you, weight your bottle and subtract your TW from it. This will tell you how many pounds of propane you have left. Granted this, by itself doesnt tell you a lot, but take it one more step and you can get a fairly close idea. 

Now that you know how many pounds are in your bottle, divide that number by the difference between the TW and the WC then multiply it by 100. This will give you the percentage that is left in your bottle. 

There are two problems with this method though. While you are camping, I highly doubt that you will bring a scale with you. If you live full time in your RV, then you might have a scale.

External gauge

While both of the above methods will work, they are relatively a lot of work. You can buy your an external gauge to install inline with your bottles and you will have the fill level at a glance. This is the gauge that we use on our grills. This will work on the propane bottles for your RV as well, but I think there is something better than this.

One of the things that we have on our camping wish list on amazon, is the Mopeka Pro Check Bundle Propane wireless tank monitoring system. We will be getting it pretty soon, and we will do a review video on it when we get it. If you are reading this a while after this post was written, I will include a link to the video.  This bundle comes with two magnetic tank sensors and a LED tank display. You simply place the magnetic sensor on the bottom of a propane tank, it then uses ultrasonic detection to determine the fill level of the tank. It will transmit that level to the LED display that you can mount somewhere in your RV. You can also get the reading on your smartphone using a free app and can set alarms per tank connected to alert when a tank gets low.

7 – Do a thorough check of the inside of our camper

Now that we have checked the outside, let’s move to the inside  and get it ready. There are alot of things that you should check on the inside of you RV and every RV is different, so Im just going to hit on some of the top things to check. We recommend making your self a check list of things the check on your RV. Click here to get a copy of the check list that we use for our RV. 

Check your water connections

Having a water leak in your camper can be very destructive to it. Camper are made from very lightweight material so getting it weight can be a very bad thing. Go though each of your water connections and make sure everything is hand tight. Check your sink, you toilet, dishwasher if you have one, outside kitchen sink, etc. Anywhere that has a water connection that you can get to needs to be checked on a regular basis. The bouncing of driving down the road and loosen them up.

Food and drinks

Dry food and drinks can be brought early and put away in its place in your RV. Keep the cold stuff inside until the day you leave and only after your refrigerator has been on for at least 4-6 hours. 

Toiletry items

If you do not go camping on a regular basis or live full time in your RV, make sure you stock up your rv with toiletry items the day before. Things like toilet paper, tooth brushes, tooth paste, mouth wash, soap, shampoo, conditioner, dish soap, etc

If you go camping on a regular basis, buy extras of your toiletry items to keep in your RV. Most of these items don’t take up a lot of room and have long shelf lives. 

8 – Check your vehicle

You also need to make sure your vehicle is ready to tow your RV or be towed by it whichever the case may be. If you are towing your vehicle behind a motorhome, most of this will not apply, but if you have a towable RV, then this is very important.

Tires

Check your tires! Make sure that your tread is good, especially the rear wheels. Check the tire pressure to make sure it is set to the proper PSI. We recommend doing this the day you are leaving to go camping. Temperature changes outside affect the pressure of your tires so what may be good the day before while it was warm, might not be enough the next day if it is colder outside. Here in Texas, this is a regular occurrence. At the time of writing this post, it is about 40 degrees outside. Yesterday the high was 78 and tomorrow it is suppose to be in the upper 60’s, lower 70’s. 

Check the fluids

Check all the fluids in your vehicle. If you are getting close to your normally scheduled oil change, go ahead and get it changed. Towing a heavy RV, adds additional wear and tear on your engine than normal driving does. You engine will typically operate at a high RPM while towing than it does without the extra weight. 

Check your brake fluid, transmission fluid, water in your radiator and even your windshield washer fluid. Make sure everything is within normal limits or topped off before you leave. 

9 – Gather all the clothes

Lastly, gather all your clothes that you are going to be taken with you. We will typically get everything packed a day or two before we are scheduled to leave. Get everything out to your RV and put in their place. Unpacking everything when you arrive at your camp site just takes away time that you could be relaxing. 

If you have kids, get them involved in this part of it. Tell them what the forecasted temperatures are suppose to be and let them choose what they want to wear. This allows them to have some input to the camping trip. This will also give them a sense of pride on what they wear during the  trip. Obviously, make sure that what they pick out is appropriate to the weather. One of our kids is very much into JoJo Siwa and will choose a her favorite long sleeve shirt even when it is 80 degrees outside.

10 – Clean RV and make beds

Beds and linens

When we get home from a camping trip, we will strip our beds and wash all the sheets. We also grab all the towels, wash clothes, and dish rags and get them washed as well. After they are washed, they can be brought back to the camper for storage or you can store them inside your main house and brought out when you are getting ready. Whichever way you choose to do, we recommend not making the beds until you are getting ready to go camping to keep them fresh for your trip. 

Take any bath towels, wash rags, dish towels, etc to your camper. Again keep them folded to maintain their freshness better. This also allows you to gather them while Camping easier as well.  If the place you are camping at has shower facilities you can use them instead of your rv show to give you more room to shower. Most RV bathrooms are cramped and the shower doesn’t have a lot of room. 

Sweep your floors

The last thing that you should do when getting ready to go camping, is sweep your floors. All the traffic of setup has undoubtedly tracked dirt inside your camper. Things may have been dropped, spilled or otherwise on the floors. When you are all done, sweep thoroughly. Sweep under your slides as well. If something was dropped and got kicked or bounced under a slide, when the slide is put back in, it can damage your floor. 

The last thing that you want is to have a dirty RV that you have to clean when one of the biggest reasons to go camping is to get away from the normal day-to-day grind and relax. So do it before relax time starts.

Conclusion

I hope that this post helped you and we thank you for taking the time to read it. If you have any tips or things that you do to get ready to go camping, leave it in the comments below so others can benefit from it. 

If you enjoyed this post, please considering following our blog and us on social media. We are on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. Facebook and Instagram will have more behind the scenes type content, and we will post on them when a new post come out. On our Youtube channel, we are going to start doing companion videos to some of our posts for those that would rather watch a video rather than read a blog post. 

Until its time to Hitch Up again, 

Happy Camping

NOTE: This post was originally posted earlier this year(2023) when we first started our blog. I am posting old posts to get caught up with the present and then I will start writing new posts.