With all the things that we consider absolutely 100% essential before you can go anywhere with your RV — these aren’t the “I wish I had these”; this is what you need before you leave your driveway. We’re going to be talking about the sewer hose and fittings, fresh water filters and fittings, electrical systems, TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system), tire pressure, tire safety, chocking, leveling, and then some of the tools that you might need in your bag. I remember the first time we bought our rig; we were walking around the store and were like, “I don’t even know what this stuff is.” And then, on top of it, we bought way too many things.
We’ve been RVing through the United States, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, Alaska, etc. So, a couple of quick points before you even go on your first trip. We wanted to talk about mindset because any time we have a hurried mindset, problems follow.
The adventure starts immediately. It starts from the moment you get in the car. Sometimes, we’re so excited to get somewhere that we’re like, “Get in the car, no stopping, no bathroom, no snacks!” But slowing down helps with setting up properly and ensuring you have everything you need, and it also helps everyone on the trip have fun. Remember that the memories you can make while you’re getting there can be some of the best laughs and memories — it doesn’t start when you get there.
One thing I have to remind myself is to slow down. Marc’s favorite thing is leaving before directions are in or anyone’s even ready. This happened once in Seattle; I tried disconnecting a Hensley hitch on a travel trailer without even putting the tongue jack down. Don’t you need to take some pressure off it by putting your stand down? Have a checklist for hooking up, setting up, and disconnecting. We’ve done a video on that, and I’ll link it here. Just remember, say to yourself, “I’ve got nowhere to be and all day to get there.” It puts you in a reasonable frame to be ready for the moment.
RVing is serious, so while we want to be light-hearted about it, remember that you are bringing massive equipment down the road. We want to ensure that you set it up safely and ready to have fun.
The second tip is “mind the dip.” but it’s worth reminding everyone that when you go through a dip — and you will eventually — it’s when reality does not meet your expectations. I’ll tell you that it was fun for the first hour, but eventually, it’s not fun.
Something will happen. At some point, your RV will break, and likely, it will break when it’s new because that’s when things shake and move. Unfortunately, many people think a new RV should be perfect, like a car for a hundred thousand miles. But that’s just not how it is.
So, when it breaks or something goes wrong — because it will — remember, “Oh yeah, I knew this was going to happen.” Mind the dip, grab some food, and take a breath. Just because something goes wrong, your trip is not ruined. Put on a solution-based mindset and figure out how to fix it, even if that means a little duct tape or securing that broken awning — not that we’re speaking from experience, of course!
In short, enjoy the journey, slow down, and embrace the adventure, bumps and all! Strive down the awning with duct tape. You taped up a window that profoundly differed from a window I broke. We have a watertight seal now. Okay, go all the way down like that. Yeah, you’re going to go through that dip, but your kids or whoever’s with you are watching to see how you react. It can be an opportunity to be solution-based and show if you’re traveling with younger people that problems happen constantly and you just put them enough. Join them; the sign came out of nowhere. We still have that Wi-Fi going strong. You get in, and those will be the stories you tell tomorrow, so I salute you. Just know that when you go through it.
Okay, so those are a couple of things that we talked about before we get into all the gear because this is like a first-trip video, and those are a couple. I’m sure there’s more, but those are some essential things. Okay, you’re ready to walk around the rig? Sure, could you hold the camera? Absolutely. Okay, good. Let’s go.
Okay, let’s start with the sewer hose. This is often from brand-new RV or is seemingly the worst part, but it’s pretty good. This is this Airstream. It has one of these stinky slinky holders right here, and these are nice to have. If your RV does not have one, they’re easy to add. These are the sewer hoses that I like. You don’t, they’re not as good as this, so this is the less expensive one. It’s the better version. I like the clear elbow, so you know what’s going on. In terms of gloves, this is another thing when you first start; you consider these central. They are, but there’s also a way to do this: you can take your time and do it very sanitary.
I’ve seen people with gloves holding up their sewer hose, grabbing the potable water stick, and sticking it in their hose. This is why you don’t fill up fresh water at sewer stations and swirl it around right in front of their eyes, which is a great way to get pinkeye. So even if you don’t have gloves, there’s a way to do this very clean, and you’re not going to have any interview problems. Just be sure to wash your hands.
Let’s talk about some of the accessories that you’ll need. So this guy right here, I hardly nine times out of ten, I won’t use this. This is like the thing that holds up the stinky slinky, so it goes right in. I need to do it every once in a while to get over the burn and go down. Still, the reason I carry them, and I want to have the 10 feet because it’s the cheapest one, is because some RV parks will require you to use these, and I don’t want to spend three times as much to buy it in their little gift shop, so I carry a little ten-footer with me. Those are some items you’ll need for your sewer hose and setup.
Here are some other quick points about a sewer hose: In our last rig, we had a 44-foot toy hauler and two black tanks. You can buy one of these wise to come in, and I found that to be very frustrating to use. What I would do is I would empty the rear through the hose, close it all off, and then I would connect that hose to my central black tank hose, connect it, and then I would empty the black, and that would flush all the gray out instead of using the Y and leaving them open. I found that to be, well, let’s say there’s something called a poopsie, and I had more poopsies with managing two black tanks than one, so working one hose and two black tanks, in my experience, was a more proficient way of going about it.
Okay, next on the list: fresh water hoses, filters, and fittings. You know, when we first started, I thought that freshwater hoses needed to be white and gray tank hoses needed to be gray, and I was like, “It’s gonna have a hard time keeping them separate,” and I think I heard that once, like, make sure your gray water hose is grey. I’m like, okay, um, so ridiculous. So this is a 50-foot 0g hose. These zero-g hoses are fantastic because they’re genuinely no kink whatsoever. Even when it’s cold, they operate like this. So what I do is I operate with a 50-foot 0g hose all the time. It’s often more than you need, but it’s not a problem having extra because it doesn’t kink. And in situations like this where we’re at somebody’s house, I almost always need a 50 for the hose, so what I do is I use my 50-foot hose for the crushed water, and then I use my 25-foot for the grey water, and I’ve had no problems.
But it would help if you had a couple of fittings: one is essential, and the other is a water pressure reducer. Now, this one allows you to see what the pressure is and adjust it, so I’ve adjusted it up to 62 psi, which is fine for this rig. But for your rig, you’ll want to check to make sure that 60 is capable because it’s not PEX through your rig. Sometimes, they say it’s specs, but the fittings are not, so you might need to be down in the 40 or 50, so check with your rig. But this is not 100% essential; it is an upgrade. This is a $40.00 water reducer; you can get a cheaper one that looks a little bit more like these and is much more affordable. It’s about ten dollars, and it is an inline pressure reducer. It just doesn’t give you the ability; it only goes up to about a quarter of 50 PSI, but if you want to save money, this is the way to go.
Okay, so speaking of this, this is an elbow, and I use this for plugging into the side of the RV because the pressure of the hose goes straight down instead of into the side of the RV and sagging like this. It can be more accessible on your RV if the fitting on your RV is plastic, like most of them are. The constant in and out at every RV site will wear down the threading. That’s the other nice thing about this: you can screw them once, and then this is metal. This is metal you’re going into; this one is permanently attached, so that’s a quick little tip.
All right, now let’s talk. The easiest, cheapest thing to do is go with the blue; it’s like a Camco water filter, but it’s a hundred microns, which is essentially a filter. You can go one step up from that and go with the green ones—they’re better. I don’t know how many microns they go to, but it’s much lower. However, when we tried it, I had issues with the flow, so I preferred to go to 0.5 microns. You can get that from Clearsource. Now, the reason I didn’t use this with our Grand Design Momentum is because the Grand Design Momentum had a water flood, like a Nautilus system built-in, and it already had a water filter that went to 0.5, so it was redundant—I didn’t need it. But this Airstream doesn’t have a built-in water filter, so I use this water filter connected right here at the source. It goes in here and then out this way. Look into something like this. This is not sponsored content, but Clearsource did send this to me, and they’re also offering you a 10% discount.
So, that’s everything you need to know about water. Let’s talk about surge protectors and electrical. We’re in an RV park, but this is where we are right now, and it’s a bit convenient because this is my 50-amp cord coming from the Airstream, going into what’s typically called a ‘dog bone’ that goes from 50-amp to 110. This is a 50-footer, the same as the water hose. When mooch docking at someone’s house, you’ll typically need some feet, so I carry a 50-footer and a 25-footer. Between the 50 and 25, I’m usually all set. Having the proper adapters to go from 50 to 30, 110, or 50 to 30 is optional when starting, but you’ll find that you need them. If you RV a lot, eventually, you may need more than your 50-amp cord and an extension. Is that the end of the world? No, you can exchange sites, but a 15-amp or 30-amp extension would be good if you want added convenience.
Now, surge protectors. A more basic surge protector that protects against surges. This is about $100, a bit over, and analyzes what’s happening at the panel before you plug in. It has color coding to indicate that the panel is supplying good current. If it is, you can go ahead and turn off the power, plug it into your RV, and turn it back on. This does that for you. It won’t send any power to your RV if it detects anything wrong with the panel. So, if you pull up to an RV park and plug in, everything seems fine, but then the RV park has issues; this will cut power to your rig, preventing spikes from damaging boards, like circuit boards in your RV. I’ve had to replace a water heater circuit board before; it’s about $150. However, large spikes can impact air conditioning, refrigerators, water heaters, and furnace boards, which could quickly cost $1,000 to replace.
Tires—this is critically important. I’ll cover a few essentials for your first trip. Start with proper chocks. It’s easy to get cheap plastic ones you put under your RV and forget about, but they can disintegrate when driven over, so what’s the point if they can’t hold the trailer? These rubber chocks aren’t much more expensive and work better. It’s critical to chalk your trailer before disconnecting—there are stories of forgetting, especially on a hill, and the trailer rolling away. When leveling, chalk on the high side. I use Anderson blocks—the big, red curved leveling blocks you roll back onto for up to six inches, then put the red triangle piece to chalk. This is super easy to level the rig and acts like chalk.
Let’s talk tires again. I’m using ST (Special Trailer) tires. ST tires differ from LT (Light Truck) tires. When we started RVing, you couldn’t get this tire for a 15-inch rim, and many RV owners went with LT tires instead, thinking trailer tires were junk. But ST tires have improved—stiffer sidewalls, better for towing, and a rubber compound that lasts longer when the RV is stored, unlike LT tires. Check for cracks, especially way underneath, and look for even wear for tire safety. If axles are bent or misaligned, wear may appear inside or outside the tire—a surefire sign of issues.
Now, for PSI. The tire will indicate the maximum cold PSI, the maximum PSI for a cold tire in the morning before driving or towing. Proper tire maintenance revolves around managing and reducing heat. Overinflated tires run on the center, generating heat there. In contrast, underinflated tires sag at the sides, causing more heat at the edges, which often leads to blowouts if overloaded or under-inflated. Tireis to create the proper flat footprint of a tire. To do that, you have to know how much weight is on each tire. Most people have yet to go to a CAT scale or, even better, an actual tire scale, so they know how much weight is on this tire because maybe the fridge or something heavy is on it. So if you know how much is on this tire, then you can go to the manufacturer’s load inflation table, and you can say for this much weight—or you can see for this much weight—how much does this tire need to be inflated, and then you can adequately inflate it.
If you do not know how much weight is on the tire, then absolutely, a hundred percent, max cold is the way to go. Here’s one myth for you: many people think that, for this tire, the max cold is 80 PSI to be rated tire. A lot of people see if they install the TPMS system, which we’re going to talk about next, they know this tire pressure goes 81, 82, 83, 84, and they think, “Oh my gosh, I’m exceeding the maximum cold PSI for this tire.” No, it’s 80 PSI max cold. A tire can go way beyond 80 PSI when it’s hot, so don’t think— many people underinflate their tires because they live in Arizona and it’s boiling, so they underinflate to give themselves room or buffer before they hit the max cold. That’s a myth. If you don’t know how much weight is on the tire, you go to the max cold, and it can exceed PSI above that. So I hope that helps.
When managing tire pressure and heat, a TPMS system is not essential, but it is a solid recommendation. We’ve used three, and this is the best one we found, also provided by Tech-Noir B. It is a color screen. What I like about it is that it sits on our dash and rotates through all the tires, which is fantastic. Technoir has created a video on how to program it, so what you do is you put these little caps right here, and then it has a booster with just a 12-volt booster that we’ll put in the front of the RV so it relays the signal from the tire to the booster to the cab of the truck. This gives us our PSI at all times, and it means that we don’t have to go out every morning and check the PSI because I can see it as soon as we’re in the truck. But it also detects small leaks, so as we’re driving on the road, it can detect that “Hey, this is slowly losing pressure,” then we’re going to pull over and fix it before it blows out.
Some of these things are expensive, but let me tell you, we’ve had three blowouts. A blowout destroys the rig, can bust your electrical cables, can damage the undercarriage under here, the RV, and is often far more expensive than just replacing the tires with adequate back tires.
All right, so speaking of tires, they do a great job if it’s a D and E-rated tire. It’s good peace of mind in the D and E. Many people want to move to a G-rated tire but don’t have an E-rated rim. You have to watch out for the G-rated tire, which is 14-ply and has 110 PSI. If you inflate a tire to 110 PSI on a rim that can only go to 80, you’ll crack the rim, so you can’t only go up in tire rating if you take a look at your rim or manage the air of that tire.
And I have heard from Saloon that you can lower—you can reduce the inflation of a G-rated tire to meet the rim, and you’ll be fine. We did it. But I’m not recommending that. I think you should do your research on all of this. There are lots of blogs; you can talk to the manufacturer. I’m just sharing information we learned about tires, and I hope that was helpful to you. It was a lot of information, so whenever I do a technical video, we have a link to update, correct, and provide more information. So, for tires and tire safety.
Okay, so we’ve covered it all. That’s talking about tools. Air is essential, but it’s optional. The reason it’s optional is that a lot of people who start with travel trailers have a D-rated tire that only goes up to 65, and you can get air at a gas station up to 65 PSI, but you can only go above 65. Their pumps don’t go up above 65. So, if you’re in that situation, having your air through like a fire pump is excellent. We had a flat about a half-hour outside the gate when we started RVing. That’s when I realized that RVs do not come with a lug nut wrench, and lug nuts on a trailer differ from those on a truck.
So, the first critical tool is to have a four-way. In terms of things that I carry here, you need to know how much weight is on a tire to create the proper flat footprint of a tire. Most people have yet to go to a CAT scale or, even better, an actual tire scale, so they don’t know how much weight is on each tire. Sometimes, one tire might bear more weight due to something heavy, like a fridge being placed over it. Knowing the weight of each tire allows you to consult the manufacturer’s load inflation table and determine the correct inflation level for that weight. If you don’t know the weight of each tire, the best approach is to inflate to the maximum cold pressure.
One common myth is about exceeding the maximum cold pressure. For example, if a tire’s max cold pressure is 80 PSI, people might see it increase to 81, 82, or even 84 PSI when it’s hot and worry they’re exceeding the limit. However, the max cold PSI is only a reference point for cold conditions; the tire can safely go beyond that when hot. Some people under-inflate their tires if they live in hot areas to avoid surpassing the maximum cold pressure, but that’s unnecessary.
Regarding managing tire pressure and heat, a TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System) is not essential but is strongly recommended. We’ve tested three systems, and the best one we found has a color screen, rotates through all the tires, and is provided by Techno RV. It sits on our dash and relays signals from the tires to a booster, then to the truck’s cab. This setup means we don’t have to check the PSI manually every morning; we can see it as soon as we’re in the truck. Additionally, it detects small leaks while driving, allowing us to pull over and fix them before a blowout.
Many want to check their rims’ compatibility before switching to G-rated tires. A G-rated tire is 14-ply with a max PSI of 110. The rim could crack if inflated to 110 PSI on an 80 PSI-rated rim. It would help if you matched the tire’s PSI to the rim’s rating. Sailun says it’s possible to safely reduce a G-rated tire’s inflation to match an E-rated rim, but I encourage you to research that.
Regarding tools, bring whatever makes you feel comfortable based on your level of handiness. Essential tools include a socket wrench, monkey wrenches (handy for plumbing and other RV parts), and a dry lube, preferable to WD-40 since it doesn’t attract grime. A PSI gauge is helpful if you don’t have a TPMS. Some essential electrical tools can also help, especially if you need to troubleshoot a 7-way pin connection to your trailer. While I’m not an electrician, many RV parks have handy people who can use these tools to assist if needed.
Other essentials include jumper cables, lights, straps, and gloves. I also carry larger wrenches and a super-sized socket wrench because, on the road, it’s sometimes necessary to do repairs like leaf spring changes. I’m not suggesting everyone should be prepared for these repairs, but if you’re taking a long trip, having tools available for those who know how to use them can be helpful. Tools like a 4-way lug wrench, a first-aid kit, and an air compressor (especially if your tires need to be inflated beyond 65 PSI, which standard gas station pumps can’t handle) are invaluable for independence and self-sufficiency.
Lastly, remember that as an RVer, you should ask for tools as gifts. They can be expensive, but they’re worth it for peace of mind on the road. Family and friends may pitch in to give you a good start with essential gear.
All right, now let’s talk about some fun things!