Where To Camp

Archive for the ‘Trailer and RV Tips’ Category

Imagine this. It’s a beautiful Friday afternoon, you get off work a little early, throw a couple last minute items into the trailer and head out onto the road.  You’ve beaten the weekend traffic and are relaxing in your favorite campground.  All that remains between you and the perfect weekend is something in the trailer, but it’s not there, you forgot to pack it.

This has happened countless times so I finally made a camping checklist.  I’ve gotten it to the point that I really only need to pack to the list and I’m confident I have what I need.  We always keep a pad and paper in the trailer to list anything that we run out of or want to add to the check list.

It’s a system that seems to work really well for us, maybe it’ll work for you too? Where To Camp Camping Checklist

Having your trailer or RV level is important. It not only makes your camping more comfortable (never a good idea to sleep with your head lower than your body) it also makes sure your equipment runs well.  An unlevel trailer can actually damage your fridge.

In order to level your trailer from left to right you’ll need to be able to raise the wheels on the lower side.  I do this with leveling boards.

Before I made leveling boards for my trailer I would haul around a bunch of scrap wood that I cobbled together to level my trailer. This worked ok but the boards always seemed to slide around and it made getting the trailer level a real chore.

So I Googled for tips on what other people have done but didn’t really find much that was helpful. There were a lot of plastic style leveling boards for sale, but I wanted something easy and cheap.

So I bought a couple 2×6 boards and started cutting and ending up with this.

To get the length for the top board I took the measured distance from the front of the first wheel to the back of the second wheel and added about 4 inches.

For the bottom board I cut another 2×6 about 4 inches longer than the top, this makes a nice “step up” for the trailer.  Also to make everything easier to carry and to accommodate an uneven campsite   I cut the bottom board into 3 equal sized lengths.

To finish off the leveling boards I cut two 45 degree angles into both the longer top board and one of the shorter bottom boards. This makes it easier for the trailer to roll onto the boards and helps prevent the trailer from pushing them out of the way.

I also had thought about putting in dowel plugs to help keep the boards from slipping, but I’ve yet to really have an issue with them sliding.

All in this took 2 2×6 boards and probably 15 minutes on the saw. It works great for me, maybe it’ll work for you?

Ryan