Outside Magazine: The Family Guide To RVing

One of the best things about RVs: they make adventuring easy. But like everything else involving kiddos, RVing with the whole family takes a little extra planning and know-how. We caught up with a few seasoned adventure parents to help you make your next family RV trip a success, whether you’re looking to rent an RV for a weekend getaway or are in the market for a rig of your own.

Pick the Right RV for Your Family’s Lifestyle

RVs come in many shapes and sizes. A travel trailer or truck camper can turn an SUV or pickup you already own into an RV when you need one and back into a daily driver when you don’t (added bonus: no need to shuffle car seats around). A compact camper van, some of which are available with four-wheel drive, can get you and your family way off the beaten path in a comfortable, self-contained package. Motorhomes and fifth-wheel trailers offer all the comforts of home with plenty of space for a large family.

The best way to determine which RV is right for your family? Try a few on for size. “We’d been thinking about getting an RV for a while, so we rented a travel trailer for a weekend of camping near home to see if it was right for us,” says Betsy Dionne, a longtime outdoor adventurer and mother of two daughters under the age of three. Check out Go RVing for more tech and specs on every kind of RV, and visit Outdoorsy when you’re ready to find a rental adventure rig near you.

Make Your Rig Feel Like Home

Sinks, showers, beds as big as the ones at home—these creature comforts make an RV feel like home to adults. Not so much for kiddos. “It can be hard to maintain a routine with your kids while you’re camping, but bringing their favorite blankets, stuffed animals, and nighttime books is a good way to make the RV feel like home to them,” says Dionne. If you’ve got the space for it, set up a dedicated sleeping area for your kids and decorate it with some of the items from their room.

Plan Your Travel Days in Advance (and Make Them Fun)

The ability to explore a variety of landscapes, parks, and attractions during a single trip is one of the things that makes RVing so special. But with long stretches of road between the places you want to explore, you’ve got to be strategic about how (and when) you drive.

“We made a rule very early on to not drive more than three hours in a day,” says Bella Smiga, who recently completed a 20,000-mile RV trip across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico with her partner, Kris, and one-year-old daughter, Nolene.

Read the full article from Outside Magazine here.