You pull into your favorite campground and head into the office to register. A few minutes later, you are heading back out the door with your site assignment in hand. The excitement you felt just a few minutes ago is tempered as you approach your site and realize it is time to set up.
Setting up is an unavoidable part of camping. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long once you figure out the process. But it still takes time and effort. Your goal is to get it done as quickly as possible so that you can begin enjoying the campground.
Below is a list of typical setup tasks. Is there one on the list you find is your least favorite?
Parking Your RV
Getting an RV parked on the first try comes with practice. Some RV owners never get it right. For them, parking is the worst part of all. They dread having to do it. How about you? Does parking your motorhome or trailer give you trouble?
Stabilizing and Leveling
Unless you are only planning to spend a single night, you cannot avoid stabilizing and leveling your motorhome or trailer. More modern units come with automatic jacks that do all the work for you. And in such a case, the task is really no big deal. You probably don’t mind it at all. But if you are running an older rig not equipped with automatic stabilization and leveling, you have a task ahead of you.
Stabilizing the RV comes first. It is the easier of the two tasks. When it comes to leveling though, you have to work in both directions: front-to-back and side-to-side. Leveling can be a time-consuming and tedious task for even the most experienced RV owners. It can be more difficult if you have to do it without assistance.
Hooking up Sewer Connections
Hooking up black and gray water sewer connections isn’t terribly difficult to do. However, it can be rather unpleasant to people whose stomachs don’t deal with sewage very well. You have to pull your hoses out of the storage compartment and hook them up. Then you hook them to the park connections. Finally, you have to open the valves and test everything. Simple in practice but unpleasant for some.
Installing RV Skirting
RV skirting is something you use when you are expecting temperatures to dip below freezing. The point is to reduce the chances that your pipes will freeze and burst. Unfortunately, there are some skirting products that take a long time to deploy. They involve fasteners, stakes, and who knows what else.
At least one company, Connecticut-based AirSkirts, makes an inflatable skirting solution. Deploying it is as easy as connecting a hose to a series of bags and inflating them. That might be the way to go.
Setting Up Other Equipment
To some RV owners, the major things like sewer connections, leveling, and RV skirting are no big deal. They would rather handle those tasks than set up all the other peripheral camping equipment. If this sounds like you, maybe you’re not a big fan of setting up the picnic table and lawn chairs. You don’t care much for pulling out and installing the huge screen enclosure that wraps all the way around your awning.
Set up is part of owning an RV. Some setup tasks are more pleasant than others, and there are some you would probably rather not do it all. But you put on a smile and get it all done. Why? Because you know that you have a full week of camping bliss ahead of you.
