Spending the holidays in your RV is a great way to spend time with family while still having the chance to travel. Whether you’re full-time RVing, traveling for vacation over the holiday season, or visiting family, there are tons of way to keep you holidays festive in a small space.
Last year, I filmed the video version of this blog post. If you’d rather watch instead of read, video is below for you!
When
spending Christmas in your RV, there’s no reason you can’t have a Christmas
tree! Albeit, it may be smaller than what you would have in a house, you can
certainly decorate one. We travel with our tree and ornaments year round. We
store them in the storage space under the couch so they’re always out of the
way, but easy to access when we’re ready to decorate.
Some
tips for decorating your RV Christmas tree:
Non-breakable ornaments
Keep it simple, don’t overdo it
Make sure it is something you can just lay down on a couch, a bed, or
the floor if you’re on the move
Other
holiday decorating tips for your RV:
Command strips and ribbon can be your best friend for holiday decorating
We place command strips on the inside of our pantry doors, tie ribbon to them and pull the ribbon over the front to hang our stockings. Use a pretty ribbon that matches the rest of your holiday décor to tie it all together
Keep your décor lightweight and easy to box up
Don’t forget to decorate the outside of your RV, too! Many RV parks have an RV decorating contest for Christmas.
One
of our favorite things about holidays in RV parks – particular in our winter
snowbird park – is all the holiday potlucks. If you’re traveling in an area
that has a lot of snowbirds, come prepared knowing there might be a holiday
potluck you can attend while you’re traveling. It’s customary to bring a dish
if you’re going to partake so don’t show up empty handed! Many RV parks host
these events for people who are traveling and won’t be with their family for
the holidays. It gives everyone a chance to come together as part of the RV
community and it typically gives you a chance to have a full holiday meal with
your family without having to cook everything. Everywhere is different, but our
current RV park actually provides the turkey and rolls for holiday potlucks.
All the RVers bring a side dish or dessert so you end up with a full meal at Thanksgiving
or Christmas without all the hassle of cooking all that good stuff in your RV.
I highly recommend searching for local holiday events wherever you find yourself. When we found ourselves in Gila Bend, Arizona for the Christmas season, the town hosted a little holiday parade a few weeks before Christmas. The RV park puts together a float for the parade and everyone not walking in the parade goes out to support the town and cheer on everyone in the parade. Many zoos also have night time events with lights around the zoo for the holidays so we always look into Zoo Lights options as well. There’s tree lighting ceremonies in almost every city in the country along with holiday plays, Christmas light displays, and holiday themed train rides depending on where you find yourself. There is so much to see and do and there are new things in every part of the country. Wherever you’re traveling, be sure to do some research on what they have going on in the area.
PS. Santa always finds you. Even when you’re out in the RV!
With so many RV Clubs out there, how do you know which ones are worth it and which ones aren’t? Depending on your travel style, the clubs that work for us, may not be best for you and vice versa. Here’s a rundown of the clubs we’re members of and the value we see in each of them. If you’d rather watch in video format, I filmed a video for Campers Inn about RV Clubs last year that I’m embedding below.
Good Sam Good Sam is what I consider the “catch all” of RV clubs. While not every park offers a Good Sam discount, a good majority of them do. The club is cheap to join and it gets you a discount on merchandise at Camping World which, truthfully, probably provides us more value than the discounts we receive at campgrounds for being Good Sam members. The campground discounts are almost like an extra perk of receiving the club member discounts at Camping World stores. The campgrounds that offer Good Sam discounts are normally only about 10% off and while that’s better than nothing, a $50/night only goes down to $45 with your discount which isn’t really that great of a deal. We don’t actively seek out Good Sam parks like we do some of our other memberships, but we will stay at a Good Sam park over another park if the rate is decent.
Thousand Trails Thousand Trails is the most expensive camping club to join, but if you use the club right, you can really save a ton of money. You can’t join this club for less than $500, but if you take advantage of some of their specials, you can get extra months added on, extra regions, and a variety of other things based on their deals that typically fall around holidays or new seasons (fall special, President’s Day special, etc.). If you’re attending an RV show, that’s always the best time to buy into Thousand Trails because you’ll get the best deals there. If you’re looking at buying into the club and there’s an RV show happening soon that you can attend to buy in, it is well worth the drive to the show and the cost of admission for the extra benefits and discounts you can get.
We don’t use our Thousand Trails membership as much as we
probably could, but when we do, we take full advantage of it. In 2018, we
stayed at the Hershey Thousand Trails park during the Hershey RV Show. The cost
to stay at any parks in the area were inflated because of the popular show;
however, we stayed our maximum amount of 14 nights there and that more than
paid for our cost of membership which we bought for 3 years. Now, for the next
3 years, anytime we stay at a Thousand Trails campground with our membership,
we’re staying for free and in the positive based on how much we paid for our
membership.
Thousand Trails does come with a few cons though that you
should be aware of before joining. If you’ve never stayed at a Thousand Trails
campground before, you don’t know what it’s like to get to your site. It’s something
like being a Gladiator. Fight to the death. Fight for your site. Do everything
you can to get the site you want or need. Drive in circles trying to find the
right site. Lay down on the ground in a site so someone else doesn’t take it.
Ok, kidding. That’s a little dramatic. We do love our Thousand Trails
membership, but I would go as far as saying – IT IS STRESSFUL to pull in and
not know if there’s going to be a site long enough to fit your RV, to not know
if there will be a full hook up site available, and everything that comes with
finding your site at their campgrounds. Read everyone’s reviews online before
buying in. Take everything into consideration. Test out checking in at one of
their campgrounds before buying into the membership. Make sure the stress is
worth the savings for you.
The other negative aspect of a Thousand Trails membership is
their 14 (or 21) night policy based on your membership level. When we stay at a
Thousand Trails campground over a certain amount of nights and up to 14 nights,
we have to be out of the Thousand Trails system for a certain number of days.
Ultimately, this just keeps people from living off the Thousand Trails system
and never paying fees, but it does make it challenging to travel solely using
their memebership. It’s still valuable, but sometimes you have to wait a few
extra days before you can check in using their system.
Honestly, I think Thousand Trails is most valuable if you
travel on vacations like spring break, winter break, and even weekends away,
but only if there are a bunch of different Thousand Trails campgrounds in your
close travelling area. Since you don’t have to deal with the “14 Days In” and a
certain number of days out issue if you’re only traveling a short period of
time.
Passport America Passport America is another great one we bought into because honestly, one night a year normally covers the cost of membership so everything over that first night each year puts you in the positive financially. Passport America campgrounds typically (from our experience) aren’t necessarily the nicest or newest campgrounds, but they’re great for one night stops during travel stretches. We typically use them for booking pull through sites when we don’t want to unhook the fifth wheel. They’re normally not in the most common of areas either so sometimes we have to drive a little out of the ways to get to our campground, but we’ve had times where we’ve paid only $10 to stay at a full hook up site with our Passport America discount. The discount is normally about 50% off, but it varies from campground to campground.
KOA Kampgrounds of America mostly referred to as KOA is one of our most used camping clubs – truthfully, because of the convenience and the almost guarantee of a nice campground. We typically will book most of our stays from location to location at KOA Journey campgrounds because they are normally within about 2 miles of the interstate (if not closer). We will pretty much book a KOA without even seeing pictures if we know it is in a good area – simply because we trust the KOA name and brand. While this isn’t always my recommendation to book sight unseen, we’re willing to do that with KOA campgrounds. The discount itself is only 10% off the regular nightly rate, but you can earn rewards with them that can be redeemed for free nights or additional discounts. If you stay enough with KOA, you can become a VIP with them which brings additional benefits like a reduced or eliminated cancellation fee which is normally about $10, but is eliminated most of the time when you become a VIP.
The truth about KOA for us is we simply trust their campgrounds and know each campground goes through rigorous reviews each year to continue meeting quality standards of the brand. We love KOA so much that we’re not only members, but we’ve been workampers with them in several locations and have been for a few seasons. We were KOA loyalists prior to becoming workampers and that’s just fueled our love for their campgrounds even more – say hello to some great amenities – especially in the KOA Holidays and KOA Resorts.
When you travel full-time, safety is a top priority on the road. We’ve always traveled with some road flares, but we can never seem to find them when we need them. Now that we have HOKENA LED road flares though, they’re stored in a nice little container so they’re always together in our truck in the event of an emergency.
With their magnetic backing, they’ll secure onto our truck just about anywhere and they’ll also magnetize to certain parts of our RV. We opted to keep these in our truck rather than the RV because we always have the truck with the RV but we don’t always have the RV with the truck. If something happens to us while we’re out driving around exploring, we’ll always have them with us. If something happens while we’re pulling the fifth wheel, we’ll have them with us, too. They’re great for hiking as well. Since they’re light weight and battery operated flares, we’ll definitely be adding them to our hiking packs moving forward – you can never be too cautious, especially when hiking in a large National or State Park.
We’ve partnered with HOKENA and we want to give you the chance to own their LED Road Flares/Emergency Lights. Head over to our Instagram where we’re doing a giveaway. HOKENA wants to send one of our lucky readers a road flare kit. Our giveaway will be open Wednesday, September 26 at noon (Eastern) and it will close on Friday, September 28 at noon (Eastern). For those not lucky enough to win, you can the discount code freeway10 HOKENA via Amazon for a 10% discount off your purchase – just use that code during your Amazon checkout for your 10% off! DISCOUNT CODE VALID UNTIL OCTOBER 7
We’ve been on the road full-time for a little over a year now, so I think it is about time for a must-have list! Whether you’re new to the RV lifestyle or you’ve been living or traveling in your RV for years, there’s just certain items you should always have on board with you. Here’s my list of 7 things every RVer should have on board.
Command Hooks – Let’s be real. Command Hooks were secretly invented for RVs. Ok, maybe they weren’t actually invented for RVs, but there truly is no better way to hang and organize items without drilling holes or damaging walls. With the various types of hooks available now, you can use Command Hooks to organize just about anything in your RV. We use them for everything from key hooks to cord organizers to décor hangers.
Diffuser – While this one might not be a necessity, a diffuser is a great substitute for candles. I love burning candles and the aroma they disperse across a room, but since it really isn’t safe to burn candles in an RV, I’m almost always diffusing scented oils for a clean, fresh environment.
Level – I hate when our RV doors slowly creep closed or the shower doesn’t quite drain all the way because we aren’t precisely level. While we might not always get it just right, we keep a small level right inside the door of the RV, so when we park at a new location, it is always easily accessible.
Tape Measure – While a tape measure is good to have on hand for a variety of uses, you can use it to determine if you have enough space to let your RV slides out. The worst thing is when you get parked and leveled, but you go to put your slides out only to find out you’re an inch too close to something like a tree or the electric box. Open your tape measure to your slides and use a permanent marker to mark your distances. If you have multiple slide depths, be sure to mark the various depths on your tape measure.
Surge Protector – I think it goes without saying that surge protectors are immensely valuable, but I often see people hooked up to electric without them. Don’t use the mentality of “There are no storms here” or “The power never goes out here” when deciding whether or not to use a surge protector. A power outage is always out of your hands, and it only takes one time for an electrical surge to cause damage. Did you know many of the RV surge protectors come with a replacement warranty? Some companies will replace your surge protector for free if it gets fried from a surge.
Tire Pressure Gauge – Never leave for a trip without checking your tire pressure. We travel with an air compressor in our front storage so we can always fill our tires on the go. While you may not have room (or the weight capacity) for an air compressor, a tire pressure gauge weighs next to nothing. Keep one in a handy location and check your tire pressure before traveling in your RV. This will help keep you and your family a little safer on the road. Plus, tire pressure is a huge contributor to gas mileage.
Extra Hookup Supplies – No matter how you travel in your RV, whether it be casual travels or full-time living, you should always have extra supplies for hooking up at campsites. We see so many people purchasing longer water hoses, additional sewer hoses, and even new electrical cords from campground stores. While it is nice that a lot of campgrounds have these items for purchase, they are frequently overpriced and often not exactly what you need. Most people buying in a campground store are purchasing out of necessity rather than by choice. By traveling with an extra set of hookups, you’ll always be prepared, no matter what situation may arise. Road & Home has put together a nifty Ready for the Road Checklist and we travel with extras of almost all the items on their list. You just never know what kind of campground setup or hazard you may run across while traveling!
*We’d like to extend a huge thanks to Road & Home for sponsoring this blog post and sending us a backpack of supplies including their Ready for the Road Checklist which you can find HERE. Road & Home products can be found online via their website and at many Lowe’s stores across the country.*
We love a good camping hack and we recently wrote a blog for Tasty Bite called 5 Camping Hacks for First-Timers. We’d love for you to go take a look and read some of our hacks! We’ll just leave that link right here for you 😉
We’re absolutely loving how easy it is to make meals with Tasty Bite products. They have a large variety of rice, veggies, and potatoes that make a great base for any meal. We’ve been using their Basmati Rice like crazy!
Freeway Gypsy 