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Back when we were getting ready to buy our RV and live the full time RV life, we thought we had it all figured out. We were going to sell all of our items, buy a truck, buy an RV and hit the road. Seems simple right? Well, unfortunately, getting out on the road and living full time in an RV is not as simple as that so we have decided to compile a list of all of the items we needed before hitting the road and living in an RV full time.

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Upgrades for the truck

After we bought the truck and knew how much weight it was going to pull, we set out to buy the perfect RV. Once that decision was made all we needed to do was hitch up the truck and pull it home so we could get going on our adventure. Well, our truck didn’t come with a hitch, but luckily a friend of ours had one that she gave us so we drove on down to the RV dealership to pick up our rig. There was only one issue, it wasn’t the right size ball and it couldn’t hold the weight that we needed to be able to pull. So we ran out and picked up a tri-ball hitch that could support our weight and rushed back to the dealership. We hitched up the truck and were ready to roll out and one of their employees made us aware that we were dipping extremely low to the ground and that he suggested we take it straight home and not take it anywhere. Well, we knew that wasn’t going to happen, but luckily we only had about 50 miles in total to go to get to San Marcos where it was going to stay for three months.

So the next thing we needed to get was a weight distribution hitch with sway bars. The mechanic at the RV dealership suggested we go with the Equal-i-zer hitch which has turned out to be one of the best purchases we’ve made thus far. By itself, it helped raise our towing plane much closer to being level, but we were still dipping down more than we wanted to be. Because it was putting a lot of weight on our rear axles and rear tires, we were told we should get better suspension installed on the truck.

We were referred to a local body shop that works closely with the Ford dealership where we bought our truck from and they recommended we go with one of the Roadmaster Active Suspension kits. Once we got these added to our back end, when combined with the new hitch we had installed, we are able to pull our RV much more safely and securely. We still have a bit of a dip when we are at full load, but it’s nowhere near what it used to be and we feel far more at ease with our setup.

Of course, anyone who drives should have one of these, but when you live your life on the road it becomes a necessity and that is an air compressor! We currently are using the Hyper Tough 3 Gallon Air Compressor which allows us to fill up both the truck and trailer tires. It uses 110v power so we can hook it up to an extension cord on our external power outlets. It’s easy to prevent a blow out from under-inflated tires so this is a must for all full timers!

If you’re hauling things in the bed of your truck, you’ll want to get some tow straps in order to keep things from blowing out or shuffling around while you’re barreling down the road. Most people can get by with a lower strength rating unless you’re using them to tie down heavier objects such as dirt bikes or ATVs. We recommend getting a 4 pack, but you’ll definitely want at least two to create an X over your load.

While our stock tires could handle the load, we also purchased new tires for the truck that were able to handle more weight. We ended up going with the Hankook Dynapro 265/60R18 114T tires. They are a little bit on the economical side, but still give us 50,000 miles as well as giving us the extra weight capacity to haul our rig without worry.

Upgrades for the RV

So we’re all upgraded on the truck, we’re able to tow much more safely, so let’s get out there and hit the road! Well, while you can do that, there are some additional items that we needed in order to turn the RV from just a place we live, to our home. Some of these are upgrades to the free equipment that you get when you buy a new RV and others are things that just make life easier or more pleasant along the way.

Water equipment

One of the first things you want to do is buy a water filtration system. We went with one of those in-line hose filters such as the ones that Camco puts out. While they are good, they aren’t perfect by any means. Since they are carbon based they don’t filter out some of the more dangerous chemicals such as arsenic, but they are good when you start until you can build a much better system. On top of the in-line filter system, we also picked up a Brita Water Pitcher for all of our drinking water. Again this is carbon based and is probably not much more than redundant since it’s already filtered, but for our drinking water, we figured it can’t hurt.

On top of the water filtration systems, you’ll want to pick up a better and longer drinking hose. Any hose that is specifically marked as for drinking purposes should work, but you’ll want to have at least 40 to 50 feet of it in total, even if you have to combine hoses. We’ve stayed at places where the 40 feet of drinking host was put to the test and it was stretched out to the point where it wasn’t even on the ground. Speaking of hoses, you’ll want a regular garden hose as well, especially for flushing out the black tank. For this, we highly recommend a collapsible garden hose of at least 40 feet in length. Since it collapses, longer may even be better. Finally, you’ll want to pick up a drinking friendly hose splitter. Most campgrounds we have stayed at have only had one water hookup and it’s annoying to have to unhook your drinking water every time you have to use the garden hose.

You’ll also want to look into getting an adjustable water pressure regulator. You can ignore the inline ones as they restrict the flow and cause you to have poor water pressure inside. With the adjustable ones, you can control how much pressure you’re getting without dampening the flow. This means your pipes are safe and you can have a good shower! Campgrounds can vary wildly in the pressure that comes out of the water hookup and if you put too much pressure on your pipes, you can develop leaks or worse, blow outs. Imagine coming home and finding water running along the floor! If there’s one purchase we recommend on this list, it’s this one.

The last thing we’ve picked up so far is an extendable brush with hose hookup for washing the outside of our RV. It’s not something that you need to get going down the road, but it is something that you’ll want to have for long term care and maintenance as your rig will get dirty!

Tank accessories

Everyone’s favorite topic when it comes to living the full-time RV life is the black tank discussion. It’s a bit surprising how common this topic actually comes up when you’re surrounded by fellow RVers! We have a few “must-haves” that we’ve added to our arsenal along the way.

You will want to get a sewer hose support system. Sometimes your sewer connection will be uphill and you’ll need to level it out as much as possible! The support system helps keep things flowing downhill as best as they can and keeps water from backing up into your hose. We also recommend replacing the original hose that you get with the RV (if you got one) with a much tougher hose. We bought one of the Rhino ones when we first started full timing and it only lasted us about 3 months before it developed a crack, which we believe may have been a mowing incident. Since then we have gone with the Dominator line of hoses and they appear to be holding up quite well. We recommend a bare minimum of 20 feet of hose, but eventually, you’ll want to get up to 40 feet as we’ve been in situations where we’ve used it all.

Our favorite way of camping is often where we have the most space, the least amount of people, and unfortunately, that means, the least amount of amenities. Often times, this includes not having any sewer connection to hook into. Because of that, we went ahead and picked up a portable holding tank. We recommend getting one at least as big as your gray water tank, but if you can’t, get one at least 30 gallons, otherwise, you’ll be making several trips back and forth when you’ve filled up your tanks.

If you don’t have a flush system built into your black tank, you’ll have to get a sewer wand in order to clean out your black tank. The only real tip we can give with this is to make sure you don’t turn it on full blast when you go to use it until you know how it’s going to react. Use your imagination there! On the same topic of cleaning the tank, you’ll want to pick up some tank pods that help break down everything that goes in there. We tend to pick up a package of Bio Pak when we run out, but we’ve found that they generally all kind of work the same. It also goes without saying that you’ll want some gloves, and a lot of them!

Stabilization accessories

Living full time in a travel trailer is similar to being on a boat. Every little step sends a shock-wave through the entire rig and causes people to get sea sick. We are still combating this problem but we have gotten things much more stable than when we first moved in.

The first set of equipment we bought were some leveling pads to put underneath our scissor jacks and tongue jack. While they don’t do much to help with the actual stabilization of things, they do help keep things on a level playing field and some places now actually require them. You should pick up two sets in total as you never know when you’ll need to use some to level your tires and others to decrease the distance between the ground and your scissor jacks. Another piece that has helped quite a bit were our starter RV wheel chocks. We call them our starter chocks because we plan on upgrading to better ones in the future, but they have made such a difference that we haven’t pulled the trigger on it just yet.

Next, we bought some cinder blocks and some stabilizers which have made the biggest difference of all of the equipment we’ve had thus far. When the stabilizers are put in place, the RV becomes much easier to walk around in without making the other person sick or causing things to roll off of the counters. We had also picked up two of the Universal RV Stabilizers, which we place one under the back bumper and the other right underneath the door. This gives you control along two different axis and helps cut down a lot on the sway.

Electrical accessories

One thing we never thought about until we started seeing horror stories in Facebook groups was a surge protector for our power cord. It makes sense when you think about it and with Aaron’s tech background it was kind of surprising that even he didn’t think about it. While the surge benefits are obvious, the best part about the one we picked up is that we can see what kind of power issues may be waiting for us before we even plug in. One of the campsites we stayed at offered 50 amp service, but the connection was broken and our LED display let us know that. Luckily we were prepared for that because we had picked up a 50 amp -> 30 amp adapter. You won’t need this if you’re in a 30 amp rig, but there have been many times we’ve been able to stay at 30 amp sites because of this adapter. Just make sure you know what all of your equipment draws in terms of power so you don’t pop the breaker!

Tires

When we had our trailer weighed shortly after purchasing it, the guy recommended we look at better trailer tires. Apparently we had some really low grade, bottom of the barrel, stock tires that came from the dealership. We found out very quickly that he knew what he was talking about as they were wearing thin with less than 10,000 miles on them! There were a few different brands that he recommended, but in the end, we went with the Goodyear Marathon tires. The tread still looks great after almost a year of driving on them and they’ve held their pressure well!

Technology upgrades

Since we both work from our RV, internet is a must have. For the most part, we’ve been really lucky in having either great cell service or great wifi. We knew we were bound to run into a spot where this wasn’t the case and when we did, we turned to the WeBoost Drive 4G-x cell booster. To see how big of a difference it made, check out our installation and review video here.

Miscellaneous accessories

We recently just picked up some bumper hatch end caps for the back of our RV and they are absolutely incredible. With them, we can now store 20 feet of our sewer hose in our back bumper where it stays until we absolutely need it. While you don’t need these to get going down the road, we highly recommend them as they are relatively inexpensive and are worth every penny.

We also picked up hitch locks for both the hitch on our truck and trailer. The hitch lock for the truck replaces the standard pin that holds the hitch in place. Now you need a key in order to pull the pin and remove the hitch from the truck giving us an extra layer of security. We also added a lock for the hitch on the trailer that prevents someone from just pulling up their truck and taking off with our home. Nothing would be worse than to come home only to find out your rig and all of your belongings are long gone!

Outdoor equipment

None of the outdoor equipment we have picked up is absolutely necessary, but when you live in an RV, you tend to spend a lot of time outside enjoying the open air. Because of that, we have a few recommendations when it comes to outdoor equipment.

What goes better with camping than a good grill? Before we left, we cooked constantly on our grill and so it was a no brainer that we would get one when we started full timing. We ended up going with one of the Coleman portable grills and it has been fantastic.

We work outside whenever we can and the weather is cooperating. Because of that, we wanted to pick up chairs that were comfortable to sit in long term, but also provided some protection from the sun. We ended up picking up this two pack of shaded canopy zero gravity chairs from Camping World, and it is one of the best purchases we’ve made. The only kind of downside we’ve found with these is that the cupholder doesn’t sit level and isn’t the biggest, but it’ll hold most normal sized cups without issue, but it does not hold our RTIC cups. For places where bugs are an issue, look into getting a canopy tent which you can pop up in your site. It is extremely helpful in places like Florida where you’re dealing with no-see-ums!

Keep in mind that this is not an extensive list and there are a lot of little things you’ll want to pick up like sink filters, but we were a bit shocked by how much we needed to get before we hit the road. Did we forget something? Let us know in the comments down below!