renting travel trailer for a week......things i should know

1) Bring a small charcoal grill, and cook on it. Tastes better.

2) Marshmallow, chocolate bars, graham crackers. Kids love s'mores.

3) Hikes from the campground. Smokies should have trails from every campground, I imagine. They don't need to be long hikes, but let the kids play on fallen logs, or whatever.

4) Take tasty snacks for the trial. Cheese and crackers, summer sausage, trail mix, dried fruit. Something different than what they eat for lunch at home.

5) Lay out at night and watch for shooting stars and satellites.

6) Lots of bug repellant.

7) Find out where the wildlife is visible, and go look (okay, go and hope to see the wildlife). Bears, deer, moose. Wait, you don't have moose back east, do you? How about coyotes? If you have them, sit around the campfire and listen for them.

8) Speaking of campfires, bring chairs to sit around the campfire. Tell ghost stories.

Have a great trip! It's not all about the trailer, although the trailer can make or break it.

Ask the family what would be fun for them. Then incorporate their favorites into the trip. You are selling the idea so it means showing off the fun things of camping. Pick a site with full hookups and reserve it today. We use woodalls to judge the camgrounds and look for 10's. Use the campgounds bathrooms as much as possible and leave the trailer's for night time use. Make the meal preparation and cleanup as simple as possible - it can be a deal killer for some. I'm lucky as nothing is better than cooking outside for our family. Realize it takes energy to set up and take down. Leave yourself plenty of time to do both. Play as much as possible. You will get to see your family's faces for a whole week. Nothing is better.

Choose a site(s) about 2 hours from home that has lots of things for kids to do; with a McDonalds nearby. Too many RVers think they have to drive across the country to find a good camping spot; not so.

If you haven't already made reservations at the campground, get busy. They fill up very quickly. When you make your reservations, it may be an online reservation system, but give the campground a call to find out how far the water connection and electric is from your site. At one of our fav SPs in KY, the water and electric is between sites and you need extra lengths of both. Apparently happens often enough that they keep a supply of electric and water supplies at the guard shack and loan them as needed. Lots easier if you know this ahead of time. Have a great time!

The black tank fills up fast with the whole family. Use the campground bathrooms as much as you can during the day and keep the trailer toilet for night time.

good point on the hoses....didn't event think of that

Water conservation..... if you are not at a full hook up you will fill your grey tank very quickly. Take showers at the bath house to save on water and use paper plates to decrease on dishes. If she insists on using the tt shower then take navy showers (get wet, turn water off, soap up and put shampoo in hair, turn water on quick rinse off then get out). If at full hook up, you will just have to open the grey tank periodically. Never leave the black tank open all the time (you should always keep a couple of gallons of water in black tank. Make sure the pull handles are closed before removing the sewer cap.

Use septic safe toilet paper (ie angel soft) and add extra water to the toilet bowl when having a BM. Make sure the rental company gives you the hoses and connectors you need.

Sewer hose kit
White fresh water hose


Make them show you how to use everything. Set the awning to have one side a little lower than the other for water run off during rain. If windy put the awning away or it could blow up over the rv and break. Have fun!

Make sure you have all the hoses required. We rented one when our trailer was in the shop (We live full time in it), and the rental unit came without hoses to dump!

It was lucky we knew we needed them, and used ours.

downtheroad wrote:
Before you go...rent this movie and watch it with the family.
Have a great adventure.

Hahahah ... only if your wife has a good sense of humour and has an open mind, or else it will backfire on your plans to convince her. :)

Before you go...rent this movie and watch it with the family.
Have a great adventure.