Shortly after we purchased our 2010 Keystone Outback Travel Trailer in the winter of 2019, we made a few camping reservations and planned some trips. We may have been putting the cart before the horse (quite literally) since we didn’t even have a vehicle that could tow our new 32ft “home on wheels”, but we were pumped. Luckily, we found a suitable tow vehicle about a month later and we officially started our plans to move into our “new home” over the next year and a half.
The first reservations we made were with some friends at a local state park over Memorial Day weekend; it sounded like a great way to kick off the “summer”, although Ryan still would have a month of school left! Promised Land State Park isn’t too far from our house and we would be camping with experienced RVers, so it seemed to be a good “shakedown trip” option. We had a few months to prepare for this trip. Now that we’re only a few days out, I wanted to discuss everything we did to prepare for our first trip in the RV, and the mistakes we’ve already made along the way!
(Read about our plans to become full-time RVers)
Preparations:
RV Inspection
The family we bought the RV from lived in it for almost a year while traveling the country. They gave us great, accurate information on what to expect from our “new to us” trailer, so we knew it shouldn’t have any major problems, except maybe a tire that needed to be replaced. We hooked up and towed the RV 3 miles down the road (for the first time with our tow vehicle) and all went well (except for the hole in the trailer, but more about that later). We passed!
Baby Cage
That sounds horrible, but that’s what we keep calling it because that’s basically what it is! Our RV has a bunk room with 4 bunks, but even the bottom bunks are elevated. We needed a way to keep our toddler from rolling out; she still sleeps in a crib, so she would have NO chance of staying in a bunk. Ryan built a gate across one of the bottom bunks and it came out great! Although it’s not completely finished, it is functional for this weekend’s trip.
New Tire
Turns out, the trailer did need one new tire, so Ryan ordered a new one from Amazon with Prime shipping and it showed up in two days! Doesn’t that just blow your mind?!? Anyway, while his dad was visiting, he helped him take the wheel off and we dropped it off to our local mechanic to re-mount the new tire. While that was happening, we put the spare on so we weren’t resting on 3 tires. The tire came back mounted and we put the new one on. Bing Bang Boom!
New Mattress
One of the first things we did after purchasing the RV was order new mattresses; we ordered one for our bed and 1 new bunk mattress for Dorothy. There were several reasons for getting new mattresses. First, we were now the 3rd owners of this RV. Second, it’s almost 10 years old and still has the original mattresses. Third, RV mattresses are notoriously uncomfortable.
We did some research and decided to order from Mattress Insider for a few reasons. Many of the full-time RVers we follow have used this company and recommended it. They can make any custom size mattress, but also have several standard RV and boat sizes available. Their prices are very reasonable, and they have free shipping! They are also made in the US and are covered with organic cotton, so this was the best choice for us! Now if only we didn’t order the wrong size… (more on that below)
Furnishing
We bought the RV from a family of 6! So they had torn out the original banquet and sofa to make more room for more practical/space saving furniture. This was not a big deal to us because we were planning on doing the same thing anyway, so they ended up saving us a load of work! They did leave us with the furniture they used, but it didn’t fit what we wanted. We have several ideas of what we want for when we move into the trailer, but we currently have a sleeper sofa from IKEA that could work. We moved that into the RV for this weekend and for our trip to Georgia in a month; we’ll see how it works and if we think it can be used in our long-term plan. We’re already thinking it won’t, just because it is so long, but we’ll see how it goes.
A few items were also purchased to make it more functional and more homey; we got a new shower curtain, bath mat, a room darkening curtain to hang over the “door” to Dorothy’s room. (By “door” I mean a paper-thin accordion door that doesn’t even reach to the floor – we will need a better solution, but we’ll see how the curtain works for now.) Some organizational items were also purchased to see what might work.
Cleaning/Maintenance
The interior of the RV was not dirty when we bought it, but it had been sitting all winter, so we needed to do a quick clean of the inside. Ryan would have loved to wash and wax the outside, but that will have to wait for another time. We also needed to get the propane tanks filled, test the refrigerator and heat/AC, grease the slides and windows, de-winterize, sanitize the fresh water tank, inspect sewer hoses and caps, purchase a longer fresh water hose, sewage treatment, and inspecting and checking the hot water heater. All of these things were a first time for us, so it took a little time and research to figure everything out. Hopefully we didn’t leave anything big out!
Change Locks
Did you know that most RV locks are the same? As in, I could probably use my key to unlock your RV? We didn’t either until recently, so we changed and upgraded our locks. We have 2 doors; one in the master bedroom and the other into the kitchen/living area. The main door we upgraded to a keypad and the bedroom lock we just changed. We also changed all of the storage compartment locks and got a key fob for the main door. We used a company called RVLock because they were, once again, recommended by several RVers we follow. This company allows you to order all the locks you want and have the same key for them all! So we ended up replacing all of the locks so we only had 1 key for the entire RV.
Brake Controller
Our 2004 Chevy Yukon XL did not have any kind of brake controller, so we needed to install one. Ryan purchased one and installed it at the same time he installed the new stereo system and backup camera we also purchase. All of that took him a day, but it was all pretty simple and seems to be working great. I guess we won’t really know how well the brake controller works until this weekend, though!
Mistakes:
What hole?
We were lucky that the previous owner of our house also owned a travel trailer, so he built an awesome attached carport to our house. Since we bought our RV over the winter, we were able to move it into the carport for the remainder of the winter. Our 32ft travel trailer, with the slides out, fit in our carport! Thanks Chris!
Anyway, we moved it out when Ryan went to get it inspected. When he got back, we moved it into our driveway in front of the garage because the following week we had landscapers coming to make our backyard pretty again (two storms in 2018 destroyed half our yard). They needed access to the backyard and through the carport was the only way. Almost a week after moving the trailer, Ryan noticed a hole in the top corner of one of the slides! When did that happen?! How did that happen?! It traveled a total of 6 miles (if that) and has been parked in our driveway since then!!! You could see a scratch leading to a puncture.
After throwing around several possible permutations, all we could figure out was he must have hit a branch or something on his way to the inspection. I did hear him swipe some branches at the end of our driveway when he was pulling out, but he measured and all of the significant branches were higher than the RV. We’ll just have to chalk it up to experience; now Ryan knows how to repair a hole in the side of an RV. Add that one to the list!
What size Mattress?
Shortly after we got the RV, we did a bunch of measuring on the interior so I could start doing some online browsing and pinning! We measured the current mattress sizes since we knew we wanted to order new ones. Mattress Insider didn’t have our exact dimensions, but the ones I ordered were within about an inch or so, so I figured that would be OK.
It would have been alright IF the bunk mattresses weren’t all different sizes!! Turns out that the mattress on the right side are one size and the mattresses on the left side are another size! Apparently a mattress on the left size was measured and Ryan built the baby cage on the right side… sooo for this weekend Dorothy will be sleeping on the old mattress, but for our trip to Georgia in a month, he will modify the railing to fit the other side of the trailer.
Ok, so it seems we haven’t made that many mistakes YET, but I’m sure we will expand the list greatly once we finish our first weekend. Stay tuned to see how the Shakedown Trip went!
