What to Buy Before Your First RV Trip — RVBuns.com

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What to Buy Before Your First RV Trip

Thirty-one things, sorted by how badly you’ll regret skipping them — and the reason each one earns its space.

Walk into any RV store the week before your first trip and you’ll be handed a cart full of stuff you don’t need yet and sold nothing that actually keeps you out of trouble. The list below is the other way around. It starts with the handful of items that protect your rig, your family, and your bank account, then works outward to the things that just make the weekend nicer.

Tick items off as you buy them. The bar at the bottom keeps a running ballpark total so you know what you’re in for before you start.

The Starter

Do not leave the driveway without these

Every item here prevents a specific, expensive, well-documented failure. Skipping any one of them is how a first trip turns into a repair bill.

Water pressure regulator $12–45

Your RV’s plumbing is designed for roughly 40–60 psi. Campground water mains routinely deliver 80, 100, sometimes more, and there’s no way to know before you hook up. A blown fitting behind a wall floods the rig while you’re out hiking and is one of the most common insurance claims in RVing. Get the adjustable brass kind with a gauge, not the cheap inline brass button — you’ll want to see the number.

Drinking-water hose (white or blue, 25 ft) $25–45

A green garden hose is not rated for drinking water — it leaches into anything sitting in it and tastes like a garage. Buy the potable-rated hose, and buy a second short one for rinsing the sewer hose. Keep them stored in separate bins and never mix them up. Veteran RVers are near-religious about this and it’s the one superstition worth adopting.

Surge protector or EMS (matched to 30A or 50A) $80–350

Campground power pedestals are outdoors, decades old, and wired by whoever was available. Open grounds, reversed polarity, and low-voltage brownouts are ordinary. One bad pedestal can take out your converter, fridge control board, and air conditioner in a single afternoon — easily a $2,000 day. A basic surge protector blocks spikes; a full EMS also refuses to pass bad voltage through at all. The EMS costs more and is the one worth stretching for.

Electrical adapters (“dogbones”) $20–70

Your rig has one plug; campgrounds have several kinds of outlet. You will eventually pull into a site where the only thing that fits is the one adapter you didn’t bring. Carry 30A→50A and 50A→30A as appropriate for your rig, plus a 15A household adapter so you can plug in at home to test and pre-cool the fridge.

Sewer hose kit + clear elbow + disposable gloves $45–100

This is how tanks get emptied, and the flimsy hose bundled with a used rig is usually cracked. Buy a good 15–20 ft hose with cam-lock fittings; the clear elbow lets you see when the water finally runs clean so you know the tank is actually empty rather than hopeful. Add a box of nitrile gloves and a dedicated bin nobody else touches.

Leveling blocks $30–80

Almost no campsite is flat. Beyond the misery of sleeping on a slope, an absorption refrigerator (the propane/electric kind in most RVs) can be permanently damaged by running badly out of level because the coolant stops circulating. Interlocking plastic blocks or a set of curved ramps both work; ramps are faster, blocks pack smaller.

Wheel chocks $15–45

A trailer that rolls while you’re unhitching is a very bad afternoon, and even a motorhome on a slight grade shouldn’t rest on its transmission alone. Chock before you unhitch, every single time, and make it the same habit as buckling a seatbelt. Two solid chocks are the minimum; X-style chocks that wedge between tandem axles also cut down on rocking inside.

High-range tire pressure gauge $15–50

RV tires run far higher pressure than car tires — often 65 to 110 psi — and most gauges in a car glovebox top out below that. Underinflation is the leading cause of RV blowouts, and a trailer tire failure can tear the fender and sidewall off the rig. Check every tire cold, before every travel day. It takes four minutes.

Fire extinguisher (add a second) $25–60

Most RVs ship with one small extinguisher mounted by the door, which is exactly where you can’t reach it if the fire is between you and the door. Add a second one in the bedroom and check the gauge on both before the trip — the factory unit in a used rig is frequently already discharged or expired.

Fresh batteries for smoke, CO, and propane alarms $20–90

RVs are small sealed boxes containing propane, a generator or engine, and a combustion furnace. The propane detector also has an expiration date printed on it — usually five to seven years — after which the sensor is unreliable and needs replacing outright, not just new batteries. Test all three by pressing the button before you pull out.

Baker’s note If money is tight, this tier is where it goes. A surge protector and a pressure regulator together cost less than one repair for what they prevent, and neither has a fun-looking box on the shelf.

The Dough

Makes the rig actually work

Nothing here will destroy your RV if you forget it, but every one of these turns a frustrating first weekend into a smooth one.

Sewer hose support ramp $20–45

A sewer hose lying flat in the dirt drains partway and then stops, leaving the rest to sit there. The ramp gives it a downhill slope so the tank empties completely, which is the whole game with black tanks. Some campgrounds require one.

Inline water filter $25–45

Campground water quality swings wildly from one park to the next — sediment, sulfur smell, heavy chlorine. A carbon inline filter screwed onto the spigot end costs less than a tank of gas and stops grit from getting into your pump and fixtures. Replace it roughly every season.

Fast-dissolving toilet paper + tank treatment $15–35

Regular household paper doesn’t break down fast enough in a black tank and builds up into a solid mass that no amount of flushing will move. Tank treatment handles odor and helps break down waste; the RV-safe paper prevents the clog in the first place. Also: never leave the black tank valve open while parked, or the liquid drains away and the solids stay behind.

Bubble levels $8–25

Stick-on levels on the front and side of the rig let you see how far off you are before you’ve unhitched and committed. Cheap, and they save the ten-minute dance of getting out to look every time you nudge forward.

Basic tool kit + cordless drill $60–180

Sockets, screwdrivers, adjustable wrench, pliers, a headlamp, and a drill with a socket adapter for cranking stabilizer jacks. RVs are built quickly and things vibrate loose on the highway — screws back out of cabinet hinges, trim lifts, a jack won’t retract. Most roadside “emergencies” are a ten-minute fix if you have a screwdriver.

Self-fusing silicone tape + spare fuses + duct tape $20–40

Self-fusing tape seals a leaking water line or hose well enough to finish the trip. RV 12-volt fuses blow for petty reasons and the replacement costs a dollar, but only if you have one — a variety pack lives in the toolbox permanently.

Torque wrench + correct lug wrench $50–180 Towable

Trailer lug nuts settle and loosen after the first 25–50 miles on a new or newly serviced wheel, and they must be re-torqued to spec. A wheel departing at highway speed is the failure mode nobody plans for. The lug wrench that came with your truck often doesn’t fit trailer lugs — check before you need it in the dark.

Weight distribution hitch with sway control $300–700 Towable

For most travel trailers over about 5,000 pounds this isn’t optional — it moves tongue weight back onto the tow vehicle’s front axle so you keep steering and braking authority, and it damps the sway that trucks and crosswinds set off. Many owner’s manuals require it, and towing without one can affect an insurance claim. Have it set up by someone who’s done it before; the adjustment matters as much as the hardware.

Tow mirrors $40–350 Towable

Factory mirrors on most trucks and SUVs can’t see past a trailer wider than the vehicle, which is nearly all of them. Many states legally require a clear view a set distance behind the trailer, and it’s what makes lane changes survivable. Clip-ons work; extendable factory mirrors are better.

Heavy-duty 25 ft power extension (30A/50A) $60–140

Pedestals aren’t always where you’d like them, especially in older parks and at pull-through sites where the hookups end up on the wrong side. Do not substitute a household extension cord — it isn’t rated for the load and will overheat.

RV-specific insurance and roadside assistance Varies

A standard auto policy usually doesn’t cover a motorhome’s contents or a trailer parked at a campsite, and ordinary roadside assistance sends a truck that can’t tow a 30-foot rig. RV roadside plans dispatch someone with the right equipment and will come to a campsite, not just a highway shoulder. Sort both out before the trip, not after.

The Butter

What makes it feel like camping

Now the fun part. None of this is urgent — but these are the things people wish they’d packed on trip one.

Folding chairs and a small outdoor table $60–200

You will spend far more waking time outside the rig than inside it. The interior dinette is not where anyone actually sits. Buy chairs a notch better than the cheapest — they get used every day and the $25 ones sag by the end of a season.

Outdoor mat + doormat $35–90

RV floors are small, and every bit of dirt tracked in stays with you. A mat under the awning gives you a clean zone and a place to leave shoes, which cuts sweeping in half. Get the breathable mesh kind so it doesn’t kill the grass — some parks insist on it.

Bedding sized for an RV mattress $50–150

An “RV queen” is shorter and often narrower than a household queen, so your sheets from home won’t fit properly. Measure your mattress before ordering anything. A mattress topper is the cheapest upgrade to sleep quality — factory RV mattresses are famously thin.

Non-skid liner, bins, and cabinet organizers $30–90

Everything in an RV is in motion for hours at a time. Without liner and tension bars, you’ll open the first cabinet at the campsite and catch a cascade of cans. Square containers, soft-sided bins, and collapsible anything — round objects roll and rigid ones rattle.

A dedicated RV kitchen kit $50–150

Trying to remember the can opener every trip is how you end up buying four can openers. Stock the rig with its own pans, knives, plates, and utensils that live there permanently and packing drops from an evening’s work to loading food and clothes. Nesting and collapsible pieces earn their price in cabinet space.

Moisture absorbers (DampRid or similar) $15–60

Four people breathing, cooking, and showering inside a small insulated box puts a startling amount of water into the air. Condensation on windows turns into mildew in cabinets and along walls faster than you’d think, especially in cool weather. Absorbers in the closet and bathroom plus cracking a roof vent handles most of it.

Small fan and a good lantern or headlamps $30–80

RV air conditioners are loud and don’t move air into bedrooms well; a small 12v or USB fan fixes both sleep and stuffiness. And every hookup, leveling job, and midnight trip to the bathhouse happens in the dark — a headlamp keeps both hands free for the sewer hose, which you’ll appreciate.

Campground and route apps Free–$60/yr

Standard car navigation will happily route a 12-foot-tall rig under an 11-foot bridge or onto a road with no turnaround. RV-specific trip planners route by your height, weight, and length, and campground review apps tell you whether a site is actually level and whether the “big rig friendly” claim is true. Worth setting up before you leave, not from the shoulder.

First aid kit, bug spray, sunscreen $30–70

Obvious, and still the most commonly forgotten box on the list. Stock it in the rig permanently so it’s never a thing you have to remember. Add tweezers, tick removal, and anything prescription that would end a trip if left at home.

What to skip for now

The stuff the store wants to sell you on day one

A generatorIf your first trips are at campgrounds with hookups, you don’t need one yet — and many parks restrict or ban them anyway. Take a few trips, learn how you actually camp, then decide between a generator, solar, or neither.
A solar setupSolar is worth it for people who boondock regularly. That’s a decision you can only make after you know whether you enjoy boondocking. Buying panels first is how they end up in a garage.
A high-end mattress replacementSleep on the factory one with a cheap topper for a couple of trips. You may find the topper is enough, and you’ll know your exact measurements by then.
A composting toiletLive with the black tank first. Plenty of people never mind it, and the conversion is expensive and hard to reverse.
Every gadget in the accessory aisleLevelers that talk to your phone, automatic tank rinsers, fancy hose reels. All fine eventually. None of them fixes a problem you have on trip one.

One more thing before you go

Do a full shakedown night in your own driveway with everything on this list installed. Run the water pump, light the stove, sleep in it, use the bathroom. Whatever’s missing will announce itself while you’re still fifty feet from your own kitchen.