Full Time RV Living Must Haves – Camper Living Essentials 

Water is one of your most essential resources. You need it to cook, clean dishes, clean yourself, drink, and more. Wherever you go, even if you find suitable water faucets to utilize, you’ll need a way to connect to them and transfer water from the spigot to your tank. 

You’ll be refilling from many different water sources while living in an RV, and the more you travel, the greater the number of different sources you fill from. But you don’t know anything about the water quality at each of these places. You could be getting low-quality water and not even know it. 

Unfortunately, this is one of the dangers of living in an RV, which we’ve covered in another article.

That’s why a water filter is one of the most essential full time RV living must haves. It will keep your water not just tasting and smelling better, but will also help to keep you healthier, which is something you can’t put a price on. 

Any RV water filter will do, but the one I use is the Camco TastePURE RV water filter.

In any standard RV, a black tank holds your human waste. Periodically, you’ll need to empty that black tank into a suitable dump station. When that time comes, a sewer hose is an absolutely vital piece of gear. Without it, you won’t be transferring anything into the sewer!

Sometimes, when you purchase an RV secondhand, it will come with a sewer hose. In my opinion, you should throw this out immediately after washing the black tank and get a new one. After all, that hose has been used many times for someone else’s waste, and these hoses commonly develop holes and leaks. The last thing you want is a spraying sewer hose the first time you empty your camper’s black tank!

If you plan on staying in RV parks or campgrounds with hookups for long intervals, then a sewer hose support becomes a necessity. 

This device will keep your sewer hose propped up at the right angle to ensure adequate flow and prevent backups due to poor drainage. 

Most RV parks require support if you’re going to remain hooked up to the sewers, and you really don’t want to deal with a waste system that’s backing up and not draining!

Smells easily buildup in RVs. These are small spaces with several holding tanks where bacteria and bad odors can fester. 

As such, it’s a good idea to keep everything as clean as possible. One of the best ways to do that is to always rinse the black tank when you dump it. 

Now, you can partially achieve this in most RVs by simply dumping the black tank before the gray tank, and the contents of the gray tank will rinse out the black tank. 

While this is better than nothing, it’s ineffective. 

No matter where you park, you’re practically guaranteed to find unlevel ground. Even in many RV parks, the spaces you’re provided with are slanted for drainage, and if you park off grid, then you know that level truly level ground is scarce in the backcountry!

If you’ve never experienced it before, it can be very disorienting to have your home on an angle. It can throw off your balance and becomes a nuisance very quickly. 

Leveling blocks are great for motorhomes and camper vans, but if you’ve got a travel trailer or a fifth wheel, then you’ll have a much easier time with scissor jacks instead. 

Jacks make it super easy to level your trailer once it’s parked. Just extend one jack under each corner of your trailer and continue raising as needed until it’s level. 

These WEIZE jacks come in a set of four and they’re specifically meant for RVs, so they’re a great option.

Condensation is a very regular problems for RVs, particularly in the cold winters when you’re trying to keep the interior warm. You’ll often wake up with foggy windows dripping water throughout the entire RV. 

A small dehumidifier can help to keep the condensation down, which can reduce the instances of water damage due to the constant moisture, or worse, mold that can have some potentially negative health effects. That’s another one of the dangers of living in an RV, but you can easily mitigate it by simply plugging in your dehumidifier at night. 

Legally, you must keep a fire extinguisher in your RV. Even if there weren’t regulations demanding it, I’d still insist that a fire extinguisher is one of the most vital tools you can carry in your RV. 

Hopefully, you never need your fire extinguisher. But this is definitely one of those times where it’s much better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. 

As mentioned in my article about the dangers of living in an RV, fire is a very real possibility. In such a small space, a fire can quickly get out of control. 

Keeping a fire extinguisher in your RV offers a very quick solution and can prevent the loss of your home in the case of a fire. 

For those living in RV parks and campgrounds with electrical hookups, roof fans won’t be an utter necessity. But if you ever boondock in your RV, especially in warmer climates, then you’ll realize very quickly that roof vans are an absolute necessity. 

There are several different models of RV roof fans on the market, but all of them provide the same general function of sucking air into or out of your RV. 

I have personally used the MAXXAIR 4500K as well as the MAXXFAN DELUXE. Both have some worthwhile features, but there’s a glaring weakness to these fans that makes them an awful choice. They have a very narrow voltage range that won’t allow them to work when your solar panels are giving your system full juice!

In warmer weather, those roof vans are essential. When winter’s colder temperatures arrive though, those same fans become weak links in your fight to keep your living space warm. With no insulation there, the cold permeates through, even though it’s airtight. 

The solution is a simple one: vent covers.

If RVs didn’t have toilets, we wouldn’t be able to live in them very comfortably. Obviously, waste needs to be taken care of differently than in a home, and that means a giant holding tank referred to as a black tank. 

Ok, let’s get gross for a minute. That’s a big tank of poo-poo, and you’re just carrying it around with you wherever you go. 

Naturally, that leaves a lot of opportunity for some ripe odors, and this is one of the problems that RV lifers have to deal with. 

Luckily, the solution is quite simple in this case, as there are several products made to combat this specific problem. 

Your RV is your house, and like any house, it’s going to accumulate mess. Since you’ll have a roof fan that’s pulling air into or out of your RV, the dirt problem might even be more persistent than in a house. 

Sure, you can try to keep up with a dustpan, but that won’t help with the dust and dirt on the upholstery. 

Unless you plan on parking your RV exclusively in campgrounds and RV parks with electrical hookups you’re going to need a way to keep the lights and other electronics running whenever you’re not plugged into shore power. 

Now, parking in RV parks full time is perfectly acceptable, but it’s going to cost you quite a bit. Just check out this comprehensive cost analysis of RV living to see what I mean. 

Most RVs already have batteries to run the 12-volt fixtures like the lights and water pumps. If you add an inexpensive solar panel and charge controller, then you can keep those small electronics running no matter how long you’re away from shore power. 

Having solar panels on your RV can change the game, allowing you to live off grid while still enjoying the comforts of modern technology. 

Only problem is, by adding a solar system, you’re increasing the number of items that could potentially give you a problem. 

If your solar system does give you any headaches, the primary tool you’ll need to troubleshoot and fix it is a voltage meter. This will allow you to determine where your problem is by seeing where power is flowing and where it’s not.

Living in an RV doesn’t mean you need to give up modern comforts or take your finger off the pulse of current events. 

While you’re parked in an RV park, you’ll often be able to use the wi-fi in the park. However, RV park wi-fi is notorious for having spotty connection and poor service. 

A good hotspot will ensure that you have internet anywhere you go, whether you’re in an RV park or you’re parked far off grid. 

Few feelings are as disheartening as turning the key in your car’s ignition only to hear it click and realize that your battery is dead. The only thing that makes it worse is when it’s your RV!

You could make such situations an absolute rarity though by installing a low-voltage disconnect on your RV. 

This little device will disconnect your battery from the system entirely when its voltage drops below a certain threshold, protecting your battery and ensuring you never experience a dead battery, even if you leave the headlights on. 

RVs are prone to all the same problems that houses get, which means that your roof is a potential problem zone. The problem is made worse by all of the things installed on modern RV roofs, like air conditioners, vents, fans, solar panels, and more. 

So, what’s the move when you’re parked in the middle of nowhere and you realize that your roof is leaking, or one of your fans isn’t working, or your solar is malfunctioning?

Without a ladder, you’d be in big trouble. 

RVs are not particularly light vehicles, and their tires are working constantly to hold up all that weight. As such, blowouts and other tire issues are very commonplace with RVs, as we’ve covered in the top 15 dangers of RV living.

One way to prevent such problems is with ample tire maintenance, including keeping all of your tires filled to the proper pressure. 

Furthermore, it’s always possible for a tire to lose its pressure while you’re parked somewhere long term. How will you leave with a flat tire?

A lot of your storage in an RV is outside, so you’ll have to leave the comfort of your RV to reach anything stored there. Even with exterior lighting on your rig, there’s never enough to really see at night. This is also true when you’re pulling into a spot at night and trying to get your campsite set up in the dark!

Sure, you could try to hold your phone with one hand for illumination, but a much easier idea is to keep your hands free and use a headlamp instead. I always keep several around my RV so one is always within reach when I need it. 

Speaking of making repairs, you can’t do any sort of repair work without the proper tools, which is why every RV needs a set of mechanic’s tools on board. 

A tool set like this one will cover you for a majority of common repairs that you might need to make on the road. 

Keep in mind that RVs are in nearly-constant need of upkeep, maintenance, and repair, so your tool set will most certainly become one of your most used items. 

Television has simply become a part of our modern lives, and it’s difficult to say you’re living in the modern world without it. 

RVs aren’t exactly the most spacious living accommodations though, and TVs tend to take up quite a bit of space.