Living in an RV can put you in a tight spot. There’s only so much you can pack with you in your RV or camper van. However, if you can pack smartly and use some packing hacks, you might just realised that you can pack more than your initial thoughts. So here’s some RV packing guide for your small spaces.
Main Storage Spots
One of the biggest storage spaces in your RV is under the bed. We use this location to house our supply of water bottles and other drinks. It’s also a good option for things like paper towels, which are bulky but necessary. We also use it to keep less-used big items like beach towels and swim gear. In many RVs there’s another storage area underneath the sofa. You lift the seat and the whole couch flattens to become a bed, and underneath it, there is room for bedding, paper towels, toilet paper, and maybe some plate trays or less-used kitchen tools like an electric skillet. When we travel, we use sleeping bags in place of sheets for all of the fold-out beds. It keeps things simple and warm! You just roll it back up in the morning, and store it right under the couch bed. Of course, we bring along extra blankets for particularly cold nights. Another main storage spot is under the table seats. The cushions lift out and you can keep a crockpot, extra kitchen items, and other odd-shaped things like board games.
Awesome RV packing hacks
Kitchen Essentials
A few suggestions for RV packing in the kitchen: bring the thin, bendable cutting boards rather than a wooden or hard plastic cutting board to save space. Also, since Tupperware can be such a pain in any kitchen, why not purchase collapsible Tupperware that can fit nicely into one of your lower kitchen drawers? It’ll save you a lot of headache (and space!) You can also find nesting bowls with lids, which can be used not only to mix or prepare meals, but also to store things. Another handy thing to buy is a collapsible colander, a great space-saver for such a bulky kitchen tool. Another neat item is a drying pad, which collects water that soaks down from your drying rack. The pads often have a no-slip underside that will keep your drying rack in place. You can also find small pots and pans at Ikea—if you choose to leave the handles off the pots, it makes storing them much easier. These fit nicely in the cupboard under the oven, along with a Dutch oven and a few frying pans.
Other RV packing tips
Shelf liners are a great tool to keep items from slipping around. You can put a square under a container on the counter for instance, or under a box, that holds TV remotes. When you’re on the road, everything in the RV is subject to bumping and jostling, and this little trick helps keep things in place. My mom also puts a few countertop items into the sink to keep them from slipping around as we drive.
Keep a small basket or bin up next to the passenger’s seat full of fun activities: magazines, word puzzles, a few pens, and maps. Also helpful is a pouch to act as a catchall for small items: mints, gum, change, hand sanitizer, safety pins, spare cash, or chapstick. It might also be fun to keep a notebook to log all the places you travel to, the locations where you spent the night, even how much money you spent on the trip. This can serve the dual purpose of helping you remember where you’ve been, and also keep track of your spending while on the road. Another idea is to keep a journal in the cab of the RV for recording fun times you have on your trips and the experiences you want to remember.
