40. Packing For Extended RV Trips: How We Do It

Anjuli is the master packer and organizer. She starts organizing months ahead of time with the RV specific gear, then moves to clothes and bedding as it gets within a few weeks, and then to food and toiletries within a week or so. This timeline will likely shorten as we do more and more trips. The morning of is just the final few things like toothbrushes, Jordan's bear, and the baby monitor. It makes for a less stressful start to the trip when almost everything can be loaded before the day of departure.

We have been trying to leave the RV specific stuff in dedicated bins in our basement so we don't have to keep thinking through every single thing for every trip. Anjuli has a spreadsheet of everything we bring though, to doublecheck mentally.

The Brinky has nice storage in this model. The front bay is Bruce's bay for tools and batteries/inverter. The middle pass through bay has the RV equipment and grills. The back bay has Jordan's bike trailer, stroller, bike, camping chairs, and other random stuff, and can also be accessed from the side too, which is important since we have the bike rack on the back hitch (a significant advantage over the Grand Design we had).

We try to anticipate the best toys to bring for Jordan. We try not to bring too many small toys that could get stuck under the slides. It hasn't been a problem yet, but could be. We also bring some extra new toys to bring out part way through the longer trips and cycle the old toys to storage under the bed. Bringing the new toys with us allows us not to waste time trying to find stores along the way, which can be more difficult in the RV. We keep some toys both inside and in the car, and she brings her favorites back and forth on drive days. That large blue egg in the picture and the multiple Easter eggs that ended up in it filled with tiny animals entertained Jordan for dozens of hours throughout the trip. It was the longest-lasting, top toy. That baby likes her eggs.

When packing up the RV and doing other RV jobs, Jordan has found comfortable ways to supervise while multitasking. This was her as we lifted the second solar panel up to the roof from the truck bed.

Reminder: When leaving our house for an extended period, we turn off the water, furnace, propane, and fridge/freezer and have our neighbor check on the house for us. We found out that if you leave your house unoccupied for over 60 days, your home owners insurance might not cover damages, so going forward, we will have to keep trips to under 60 days or have a relative come stay in the house for a night to establish occupancy. But, check with your own insurance company. We haven't had any issues needing coverage, but heard something like that on youtube and called our company to check.