RV Essentials
Find everything you need to start your RV journey the right way! We’re all about making life easy and inexpensive, which usually means buying through Amazon (but we’ll tell you if we find a better deal!).
Don’t worry, these links aren’t going to cost you anything extra, but we do get a small fee when you use them, and hey every little bit helps! If we forgot something or you have any questions, please send us a message here. For more information on this items listed, click the + next to the titles or check out our blog.
Thanks for stopping by and happy lurking!
+ Water Accessories
In an RV, you’ll need a Drinking water safe hose. We have two: one for warmer months that is anti-kink, no one wants a kinky hose! The second is a heated hose for when we are winter camping. Let me just say, frozen pipes are NOT FUN! This heated hose has been a life-saver. You can make one, but like I said, we like things easy.
A pressure regulator will protect your pipes inside the RV. We like the kind you can adjust, but the less expensive options also work just fine.
Campground water is not always the cleanest or tastiest. Filters that connect to your hose will keep your pipes cleaner and also filter our all sorts of gross stuff from you drinking water.
+ Black and Grey Tank Accessories
The most dreaded part of RVing is dealing with the black tank. You can read more about dumping and maintaining tanks here.
The old stinky slinky is going to be one of the first things RVers have to purchase, and we initially went cheap. You don’t need the top of the line, but it’s best to get one with end caps and a clear portion. This allows you to see if there are any clogs when dumping the tanks. The end caps make travel days a bit cleaner, by sealing the hose during storage.
We’ve tried several types of chemicals to put in the black tank that help with odors and dissolving solids. Our old favorite is no longer being made, but we’ve found one that we like even better! Sewer hose support is indeed essential. It allows grey and black water to flow down into the connector, and many RV parks require them.
We use Scott Rapid Dissolve RV Toilet Paper. You can purchase it online, but we get ours from Wal-Mart for about $3 for 4 rolls.
+ Interior Accessories
I can’t stress enough how important a dehumidifier is in an RV. We had a tiny one that pretty much just wasted space. After watching our walls sweat and peel, we finally shelled out the money to get a real dehumidifier. It makes a HUGE difference in the air quality and protects your RV from water damage caused by condensation.
Depending on how and where you camp, you may want to invest in s space heater (or 4). As camp hosts, we have free electricity so we try to only use propane when absolutely necessary. We’ve got two main heaters that keep our RV nice and toasty: a 1500 watt forced-air heater (below) and an infrared heater (this one from Lowe’s) that keep the entire RV nice and toasty. We also use small ceramic heaters to reduce condensation on the windshield, heat the bathroom, and keep our exposed pipes warm in the connection bay. Read more about how we stay warm in the winter here.
+ Other Accesories
Those were the absolute essentials, but we have a couple of things we definitely would not want to live without.
LED lights under the RV help to keep mice and other rodents from crawling into your rig. This is especially a problem in colder months. We’ve had a mouse and a pack rat hop on board only to find a couple lazy cats that don’t know how to hunt anything. Needless to say, we had to take care of these pests ourselves. We’ve yet to have a mouse brave these lights though, so in our opinion they’re essential.
LEDs are also great options for replacing your interior light bulbs. The conduct less heat which makes them much safer than traditional RV lights that can actually melt the light fixture. They’re also very affordable and you can pick how cool or warm the color is.
We’ve got a nice automatic awning with a wind sensor so sensitive it will pull the awning up if a hummingbird flies by. So, we leave this “wonderful” feature off and use awning tie downs to protect it from flying up in the wind. During months with unpredictable weather, we opt to leave our awning up and brave the rain without it.
The sun shade that came with our RV is one of our favorite accessories. It keeps the sun from heating up the RV in the summer, and adds a bit of privacy during the day. Unfortunately, the company that made ours is no longer around. We found the one below to be pretty similar though.
Tire covers will prolong the life of those expensive RV tires, so this inexpensive item is well worth it.
