There are things in the RV world that can be made a bit more complicated compared to living in a brick and mortar home. In this case, we are talking about fixing and repairing things. At home, you may have a bevy of different tools for any purpose, and if you don’t, you can just run down to your local hardware store.
Unfortunately, you don’t always have that luxury when it comes to RVing; you could have something big happen to like a tire falling off 50 miles from civilization or even something small like batteries in a flashlight that need to be replaced. In these instances, you’ll need to turn to your RV travel toolkit.
So, what do you need in your RV travel toolkit? Rather than just giving you a list of items, you need let’s take a different approach to assemble your RV toolkit.
Why You Need to a Custom RV Toolkit
If you do an internet search for RV toolkit, you’ll be flooded with lists and layouts of items. These are great, and they recommend some valuable items, but I think it’s a bit unreasonable to assume there’s a one size fits all RV travel toolkit. You likely wouldn’t need three diverse types of hammers for a tiny teardrop trailer, but a diesel pusher may need unique items to take care of all its features. That’s why we recommend taking a three-category approach to stocking your RV travel toolkit. Let’s look at the categories and how you can assemble your toolkit.
Mechanical RV Travel Toolkit
Spend enough years traveling in an RV, and you’ll get familiar with the tools needed to fix anything under the hood or the whole RV for that matter. To do these fixes, you’ll need your mechanical RV travel toolkit. By mechanical we mean a category that must deal with what’s under the hood as well as other exterior portions of your RV.
This could include items like the wrenches, fluids, filters, even extra fuel containers. If you own a giant Class A motorhome, your mechanical RV toolkit will be much more extensive than if you are towing a fiberglass egg. Take the time to look over all the different components of your engine as well as your RVs exterior to make sure you have the tools needed should something go wrong.
Amenities RV Travel Toolkit
This is the toolkit you’ll need for the amenities inside of your RV. RVs are chock full of features, gadgets and the appliances that may break down or need routine maintenance. You want to make sure you’re able to fix these interior items should something go wrong.
Your interior RV toolkit may include items like light bulbs, screwdrivers, hammer and other items that you would find in a typical household toolkit. Like everything else on this list, the extent of your toolkit will depend on your RV. You might have specialized vanity bulbs or a hex key. Take a long walk through the interior with a pen and pad to assemble what you may need.
Miscellaneous RV Travel Toolkit
This toolkit is dependent on what type of RVer you are and personal preferences. Tend to drink wine when at the campsite? Pack a corkscrew. Have a plasma TV screen that likes to hold onto dust? Pack a microfiber cloth. There, of course, maybe some overlap between the interior toolkit and the practical toolkit, but it doesn’t matter if it’s available when you need it.
Using the categorized approach to assemble your RV toolkit will not only ensure that you have all the items you need, but it also helped you be more organized, an important tenet of RVing. The beauty of assembling your toolkit this way is that you don’t have to follow strict rules or buy items you don’t need plus you can always add and take away items.
Look online or use RV forums to get an idea what other RVers are bringing along, so you don’t miss any important (or not so important) items. Try a do-it-yourself toolkit approach on your next RV trip and see how you like it.