How to Rent an RV

How to Rent an RV

Pack your glamping shirt because we are renting an RV for the first time. Here are eight things you need to know right now about renting an RV for the first time. If you do not enjoy camping in a tent or a pop-up camper or outside in the nakedness of nature you will enjoy an RV trip.

Newbies are going to discover that renting an RV is easy.It’s cleaner and it is much more enjoyable if you are a non camper. You are going to enjoy renting a motor vehicle. An RV rental-ours was 200 a night because we rented 500 miles that’s 100 miles per day you rent from your your rental company we chose Cruise America because that was located where we needed to rent an RV and then if you go under that amount under 500 miles you’re going to get reimbursed 35 miles per 35 cents per mile and then if you go over 500 miles in your five day or however many days you rented a period then you will owe them 35 cents per mile. We kept it to three miles under 500 miles so we kind of broke even.

In an RV you are going to see so many different cities, so many different sights in America that you would not see if you were going on a vacation to one certain city. RVing through the mountains, the golden green waves of grain. God Bless America, my home sweet home. You\’re going to enjoy renting an RV for the first time.

Number two. You will have quality family time. Being stretched and pulled out of your comfort zone is good for you. You know that as a parent and campsites have wonderful detailed websites these days.They give you the details you need. I wish we would have looked on a trip advisor to see actual renter pictures of like the showers, because that is really important to me but you’re camping I mean, get over it it’s going to be a little rough. Some of the it’s going to be a little less clean in some areas but that’s one thing we would have done. Our first camp ground was White Oak campground. It was wonderful. It had a pool and a playground. We have a 12 year old and he brought a friend and then all of the campgrounds have playgrounds and pools but the second one we stayed at was called a family camp ground and when you see that you’ll know that they have many more activities in one area that are geared just for kids so they feel independent in their playing with each other and the parents get to have a vacation. RV also means relaxing vacation as it does mean recreational vehicle. Our child experienced breaking down on the side of a highway because we blew a tire and he got the giggles after waiting for so long. He experienced that got to experience blue collar Tire Center talk and guys talk and the way they look and act and that is glamping to me. Okay we got our the kids to experience things they would not normally experience in a hotel or a resort vacation spot.

Number three. You and/or your spouse will know how to work everything on in the RV and you will know how to troubleshoot. For instance we have our AC trip my husband said and he knew immediately to go under the sofa and flip a switch and our vacation was not interrupted by this problem and it never happened again. Just so you know for your research for renting an RV for the first time, when you rent an RV you are going to choose it by the length of the RV. We chose a 32 foot RV and that means that our master bedroom mattress is going to be a queen-size and the loft mattress above the cab of the RV was going to be a queen sized mattress as well and then you can also use the kitchen table. Take it up and down and attach it to the sofas or the benches by the table and that’s another queen-size mattress as well. So that’s how you determine the size of your RV. Then you’re going to commit to watching the rental company’s videos, all these videos to rent an RV. These videos are golden; they are for your good so that when the AC trips you know immediately how to fix it.

You have to commit on there and you have to sign electronically on the website of Cruise America saying yes. I watched these two 25 minute videos and therefore on a vacation and something happens I am not going to have to spend twenty five minutes trying to figure out or on the phone with somebody trying to figure out how to fix something. I will know what to do and our vacation is spared. It gives you the peace of mind and you can continue your vacations because you watched two twenty-five minute videos. One of the awesome things about renting an RV for me is being able to go to the restroom while we’re driving down a highway or a back road and when we rented the RV they give you a little blue tablet of powder that is an odor neutralizer and a dissolver and you put that in with the first use and then every time. You won\’t like it your first camp ground. When you leave that campground you’re going to dump at their dump station and then drive to your next campground. Well after each dumping then you need to add a new tablet, so we did have to buy more of those. Paying for gasoline is a little bit expensive so be sure to add that to your budget. We flew to Virginia and then we went into Pennsylvania so we did have to rent a kitchen set. the RVs do not come with forks and knives and skillets pots or kettle.

Number four. An RV is a moving hotel suite and it has all of the conveniences of a hotel room and in your home on wheels you have beds, you have a kitchen, you have a bathroom, you have all of that right there on for our six wheels. Now our shower was four feet tall. I mean like we felt like Elf using the shower in the movie so we never used the RV shower but the boys after being in the Gaga ball pit,if you don’t know what gaga ball is look it up, so fun they were in a sandy gaga ball pit and so they washed off their feet one night in the shower and that tank gets that water that you use in the shower is in with the tank of the sink. Okay so it can fill up really fast when you\’re washing dishes the water that is used while you’re washing the dishes goes down the drain into a tank. The water from your shower that you have used goes into that same tank and these buttons on the side like right by the kitchen it will show you how full that tank has gotten.

So after two maybe three homemade meals you will need to empty out that tank. That’s very easy to do. I helped my husband do it by pulling out the hose and letting it run down the drain that’s in the dirt behind the RV. You use the toilet that also goes into a tank and with the little blue tablets that I’ve told you about and then when you’re leaving the campground they have dump stations. You just attach the hose to it and it’s a great way for kids to experience something gross that isn’t really gross. They don’t get dirty. You’ll have to wash your hands but you’re not going to get dirty and you will do it. You will learn to how to do it and you will know because you watched the video on how to do it just as easily as Uncle Eddie did and the best part about having a moving hotel suite is that you don’t have to pack up every time you move to a new city. Your stuff is already put away in the cabinet you can see beside the bedroom we have cabinets. My cabinet would hold my suitcase so I kept my suitcase in there .We had 10 towels and we had enough room to store our towels in the bathroom cabinet and the cabinets above.

Number five. The kids are going to be so cool because they can play on electronics and eat lunch whilst they are sitting at the kitchen table in their RV and driving down an interstate.

Number six. The storage is OK for what you will be needing to use in your RV the refrigerator I was surprised at how large it was. I’m 5′ 8″ and it was as tall as I am. It was just more narrow but we were able to store enough food in the fridge for five days worth of meals. We did eat out like three or four times during lunch, one dinner but so you will have enough room. One thing I suggest doing just for your cleanliness mentality. I’ve lined those drawers with a paper towel just so I felt a little cleaner. Next time I would bring like storage containers of Tupperware that I can store like dry food under the kitchen table or in between the two captains chairs, the driver and the passenger chairs. I did feel like I needed more room for that kind of stuff like cereal boxes of noodles boxes of popcorn that kind of thing. I bought a bag of gallon ziplock baggies and that’s how we stored our leftover noodles or our leftover box of Nutter butters that I almost ate half of the first two days and then I finished it off the last three days. But anyway the leftover marshmallows from s’mores you can store the ones that you don’t use in a ziplock baggie. It just helps not attract ants or other bugs.

We have a cabinet above the sink which is mainly for plates and bowls and that kind of thing so we did store like aluminum foil and the baggies up there and we also used storage above the kitchen table. We had an extra cabinet for that and there’s a little bitty narrow and long cabinet above the front door of the RV that we used to store our dry products. But I would have bought and you will also need water bottles. Like I said earlier you cannot use the sink water for anything. You can store those water bottles in between the front driver seat and the passenger seat or you can just put them in the back underneath the RV. There is so much storage. You can see we had two suitcases and we have so much more room in there you could store kayaks or camping chairs, which we did. We borrowed from our friend Noel and we have so much room under there for all of our suitcases we flew to Virginia remember and then we RV’d it from there to Pennsylvania so just so you know cruise America offered to keep all of our suitcases at their rental unit for us while we were on our vacation so that\’s an option for you. I thought that was awesome.

Number seven. There is no dishwasher. You are it. I would bring lots of paper towels. I would also bring dish towels just to lay on your counter top which is very minimal. There is not a lot of counter top. I had to use a cutting board on the kitchen table, there was no room for me to use a kitchen cutting board on the counter. bring dish towels – because you’re washing dishes after every meal bring the dish towels put those on and dish towels to dry them off with so you need at least four dish towels extra.

Number eight there was no coffee maker in the whole RV and you couldn’t even rent one as an option Okay so we used this awesome little cup that my husband uses when he travels. It’s called the beau do I believe and what you do is you boil water and make sure you use bottled water in an RV or a gallon of water, not the sink water. To boil it you boil some bottles of water blow some bottles of water in the kettle boil some bottles of water and then pour that in here on top of your coffee grounds and it’s light for this glass cup and it’s going to be about a 16 ounce or 12 ounce cup of coffee you’re going to put two and a half tablespoons of grounds to the bottom of this cup and then pour boiling water on top of it all the way to the top and then you’re going to suction it with this French press it’s a to go French press cup basically and screw on the top and let it sit for four minutes and it’s going to steep and all that stuff and then with the plunger you just go firmly but slowly you push it all the way down to the bottom and what’s great about this cup is you could use this cup to drink your coffee or like I did I poured it into my coffee mug and then he made his own cup. So that’s an option for you if you have to have coffee every morning like we do.

When we were thinking back about our awesome RV trip we were thinking what would we have brought if we had done this again. We would have brought an aluminum mug because the coffee cups in the rental RV were this small and we’re not used to drinking that little coffee anymore and you have to keep making a cup or refilling it and microwaving it to keep it warm enough. I would just bring an aluminum cup. We would also bring plastic gloves because when you’re using something when you’re washing hands so much when you\’re handling the dump pipes the water pipes all those things it just would help me feel better to have plastic gloves. I would also bring more anti bacterial wipes. I would also bring more dish towels. I would also bring a sharpie. We did not buy gallon jugs of water, we bought bottles and with all four of us drinking bottles of water a lot during the day and then rolling or somebody putting it on the kitchen counter and I thought I\’d put it on the kitchen counter it would help if we had just written names on water bottles for that day. We would also bring shoes that you can walk through a muddy campground with. One night it poured the entire night which sounds so relaxing while you’re sleeping but the next day when we arrived at this campground it was completely muddy right where we were supposed to step out from our RV so that’s one thing to think about. We ended up buying one of those old-timey plastic table cloths that has the flannel material underneath and we put that all underneath our stoop for stepping out.

We would also bring a towel for the inside of the RV like just to catch more dirt that you could shake out every day cruiseAmerica provided us with a little towel just for our steps and you would be amazed at how much mulch it caught and we would just shake it out and it was a completely white towel what we would shake it on every day and then put it right back on the steps you do. If you rent the kitchen rental set you do get a broom and we just recommend sweeping out every night or every afternoon before you start cooking. Choose the time of day and just sweep out every day. That’s one chore that one child can do very easily and quickly. We forgot our car charger, I think since we flew, but for this RV you just need a regular car charger plug that fits into the lighter of the RV.

We also would have brought a string of lights because you want to go outside with the fire going at night it’s good to have just a string of light to add some festivity and some light to find your way back to the RV. When you go to the restrooms to take a shower you can find your RV more easily, you have a flashlight anyway. It’s just something festive and fun and super cheap I’ll link them below on Amazon also to holdup your string of life do you need these magnetic clips that will clip or magnetize to the side of your RV and that will hold up your string of lights and almost I don’t know if you’re going to need this think about it for your string of lights and how long it is or how long your string of lights is but you might need to buy a portable light six foot or three foot long extension cords so that you can plug it in your generator you do pay for by the hour but it’s not very expensive at all but you can use the generator while you’re driving. Mainly you’ll use it when you are not hooked up to the electricity of a campground.

Now the things I did not like about RVing. I did enjoy going RVing. I did not like feeling damp all the time. You know inside an RV you have the the box air-conditioner and you just can’t help but feel a little damp from that. Also the towels felt like they never got dry and they it’s almost like they just smelled like mold because they were never dried over six days. I also think just for me because I just want to feel clean and drier. I think six days was too long a rental for me for my first go-round. I would recommend four days; that would be three nights. Something for you to think about.