How to enjoy packing for a trip

Leaving in a few hours. Camper kept mostly packed from our last trip a couple of weeks ago. So much anticipation only to have this 3-day weekend trip end too soon...

John

mooring product wrote:
I hate loading and unloading. Pulling off the tailgate and bed liner. Installing the stable loads...

I love the rest..

Me too. That is why I built a trailer for mine.

I hate loading and unloading. Pulling off the tailgate and bed liner. Installing the stable loads...

I love the rest..

Good question. I like to just grab a handful of stuff together and get going. The part that upsets me and gives me anxiety is when my wife loads box after box of******in the RV. I don't know why I get this way but I do.

Otherwise, making a list and taking what you need is important or you will find that you forget things.

I would also pack ahead of time. In addition, I have plastic see through storage boxes that fit perfectly in rv and I just take the boxes in the house to load them up. I bring them back out and that is about it.

I generally keep a week's worth of clean clothes in my camper, so when I take off for my trips all I have to do is fill up the fuel tank and go. I usually pick up extra food on my way.

Bob in Calif.

If we are leaving on a Friday after school is out. I usually put the camper on the truck, Thursday night along with check tire pressure, etc..Then on the day of leaving we pretty much only need to put in perishable food, medicine and go. We have camp clothes, shoes, and jackets, etc...that just stay in the camper all the time.

When we get home we start the laundry right away, do a little cleanup, and refill the firewood. As laundry is clean we put it in the camper right away so it does not sit in the house.

And my wife and I work as a team so even getting ready or unloading only takes less then an hour now.

My wife and I enjoy packing, It takes us a while as it is part of the routine toward time off from work.
"A bad day of Camping is better than a good day at work".
We do a little bit of getting ready each night after work. The momentum builds all the way to leaving, then, Two Blocks from the house when we both look at each other waiting for who will say,
"I forgot the ---?"

A checklist and no rush do it for us.

We started using the checklist after we once forgot some pretty basic things on a rushed weekend trip. Ever since, a new list is printed before each trip, and we make sure we plan for ample time to do the packing.

The checklist doubles as a sort of log book for the trip. Any items that were missed are added manually, and the checklist master is updated after the trip.

At least we have never forgot our breakfast coffee again...

We keep as much stuff in the camper as possible all the time, including non-perishable foods (such as tinned goods, sauces, salt, individual portions of breakfast cereal), all the cooking-ware, dishes, etc., battery chargers (for cameras / AA batteries), USB cables, that sort of stuff. I keep an appropriate set of tools and spares in each vehicle - that avoids me taking them out to use for other jobs. Note that I keep the tools in the truck, not the camper since we often use the truck without the camper, but never the other way around.

Then during the last few days before a trip I start stacking stuff in our staging area (generally our front hallway) as I think of it - cameras, laptops, washing kit, coats and hats.

Steve.

I make a new list for each trip on a spreadsheet and after the trip, i make a note of anything we forgot or needed that we did not pack. Been doing this for 3 years. So when we duplicate a trip or do a similar trip, i just pull up that sheet and update it for that trip. I find this has saved me a lot of time, made packing easier. Works for me.