We have a 2008 24 foot Winnebago View 24H. Space can often be a premium on smaller motorhomes and ours is no exception. This past several days we were on a 2,500 mile trip with 6 of us (3 adults, 3 teens). Normally there is just 4 of us. This brought about some added considerations for space and weight. Here are a few things that we employed. I always enjoy hearing more about others experiences in this area and how to improve, so please share.
1. Use sleeping bags that compact to smaller sizes. I found the ohuhu 75 x 34 sleeping bag for $20 on Amazon and was able to put 6 bags plus pillows in the normal storage place that just two sleeping bags used to take up.
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2. Use throw pillows or compacting backpacking pillows for smaller sizes.
3. We have a dish wash basin and bowl that collapse for space savings.
4. We use lightweight stacking plastic cups and Light My Fire Original BPA-Free Tritan Spork Multi-Color 4-Pack (sporks) for utensils, but still carried metal table knives. We also used plastic plates. All eliminate disposable items and saved weight and space. (Corelle would be an alternative albeit heavier)
5. We have a good stainless steel stackable / nesting cookware set. There are lighter versions but these are good quality and don't burn our food. Magma A10-360L 10 Piece Gourmet Nesting Stainless Steel Cookware, Gas, Electric or Ceramic Cooktops
6. Consider a travel safe. We have one that our laptop and other valuable items and sensitive documents can fit in when you are away from the RV. I include copies of the contact information for the various campsites, tickets to events, etc in tanks as well for those that are already known. I lock it against the steel frame of the jackknife sofa. I figure that an out of state license plate on an RV is a target as can be RVs in general due to easy break in options.
7. Have a clear checklist of what you need for the trip and stick to it. We plan with this as well as a meal checklist so that we bring what we expect to need. Remove items that you rarely or never use. I found several items that are used once per year on a family camp out (church) that were being stored in the RV rather than the garage. Instead I will only add them when they will be used.
8. Consider having your appliance manuals and other RV documents on an iPad, laptop or the like rather than the heavy set of documents. I leave those at home and have he others ready to go in PDF format. We do the same for books to read.
These efforts above freed up 2 drawers, 2.5 indoor cabinets and an outside storage area for use on our recent trip that included 2 more passengers than usual.
9. Don't forget a basic toolset. I have a tool bag from Home Depot that is about the size and shape of a doctor's "house calls" medical bag. It includes a multimeter, tire gauge, electrical tape, small spool of automotive electrical wire, emergency connectors, fuses, duct tape, zip ties, small funnel, screw drivers, crescent wrench, vise grips, channel lock pliers, wire cutters, and certain known wrenches, sockets, torx bits and a spare bulb or two for our RV. If you have a slide, be sure to know how to manually retract it and if there are any tools required to do so if it fails on the road. (We have 1 slide out).
10. Consider using the Internet cloud for photos and other items. We use google maps for trips, google calendar includes our itinerary and the registration information for campsites and such, and we back up our photos to Dropbox when we have chances along the way to do so. One of our cameras was stolen on our Yellowstone trip a few years ago. I would have happily given it to the thief in exchange for the family photos. Had I backed up the photos, the loss would have been less.
11. Don't forget about your RVs maximum cargo carrying capacity and maximum axle weights. Just because it fits doesn't mean that you aren't overloaded. I travel with 1/3 of a water tank full for toilet, hand washing and other use between locales. In Oregon, truck scales that are closed still leave the scales on - a useful feature. I'm glad that our current RV has more of a buffer than our last one and we were well within the margin of safety but I still keep an eye on this.
Share your additions from your travels too..
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