You and your partner share a deep love for RV adventures. Whether it’s a short trip to a neighboring state or a grand cross-country journey, you’re always plotting your next getaway. Now, with the addition of children to your family, you’re eager for them to embrace the RV lifestyle just as fervently as you do.
Expanding your family calls for some adjustments, including possibly upgrading your RV to accommodate your growing brood. While the cost of full-sized motorhomes can be prohibitive, opting for a spacious travel trailer presents a practical compromise. These trailers often offer comfortable sleeping arrangements for five or six individuals, and sometimes even more.
Much like purchasing any vehicle, investing in a travel trailer requires careful consideration. You want to ensure that you select one that will provide enjoyment for the entire family for many years to come. As you navigate this significant decision, take heed of the following 10 tips. They are designed to assist you in finding the ideal family-friendly travel trailer for your adventures ahead.
1. Ensuring Sufficient Sleeping Arrangements
As you plan your family’s RV adventures, it’s crucial to address the sleeping arrangements for everyone on board. While you and your partner may share a bed, deciding where the children will sleep is a key consideration when selecting a travel trailer. With two or three kids in tow, your passenger count increases to four or five, including yourselves.
This necessitates exploring travel trailers with larger floorplans to accommodate the entire family comfortably. Admittedly, spacious floorplans often come with a higher price tag. However, if budget constraints limit your options, there are strategies to maximize space without breaking the bank.
Some travel trailers feature slide-out walls, which create the illusion of extra space when extended. Additionally, certain floorplans incorporate pull-out beds discreetly concealed within sofas, providing additional sleeping space for one person. Bunk beds present another space-saving solution, as they are stacked vertically.
Ultimately, ensuring that each child has their own bed is essential for a pleasant and enjoyable road trip experience. Neglecting this aspect could lead to discomfort and dissatisfaction during your travels.
2. Prioritizing Bathroom Facilities
When embarking on RV adventures with your family, ensuring access to proper bathroom facilities is paramount. While adults can typically endure a longer journey without immediate access to a restroom, expecting the same from children is neither practical nor advisable. To avoid accidents or excessive pit stops, it’s essential to have a fully equipped bathroom in your camper.
This bathroom should ideally include a functional toilet, sink, and shower or bath. While adults might tolerate occasional roughing it on the road, children are accustomed to a certain level of comfort and routine, including daily bathing. Even if older kids may resist bath time, it’s important to maintain consistency for their overall well-being.
Some experienced travel trailer owners with families recommend considering models with two bathrooms if feasible. This arrangement allows for one bathroom designated for adults and another for children, providing everyone with a sense of privacy and personal space—a precious commodity in a travel trailer environment. However, it’s worth noting that opting for a trailer with two bathrooms often entails a significant increase in cost.
3. Prioritizing Cable Hookups for Entertainment
In today’s digital age, many youngsters prefer consuming TV content through smartphones and tablets. However, reliable Wi-Fi connections are not always available on the road, prompting children to resort to traditional TV viewing methods.
If you intend to set up a television in your trailer, it’s crucial to ensure you have cable hookups and TV antennae to facilitate this. Modern HD TVs are typically lightweight and compact, so concerns about adding excess weight to your vehicle are minimal. With HDMI hookups, your children can even bring along their favorite video game consoles to enjoy during breaks in the journey. While internet connectivity may be intermittent, having access to these entertainment options can significantly enhance the travel experience.
By incorporating these familiar comforts from home into your RV adventures, your children are likely to feel more at ease during long road trips. Additionally, you can expect them to be more entertained, reducing the likelihood of them seeking constant attention from you. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved!
4. Ensuring Ample Outlets for Electronics and Charging
In today’s tech-centric world, ensuring your travel trailer is equipped with an abundance of outlets and hookups is essential, especially if you plan to bring children along on your road trips. With smartphones and tablets becoming indispensable companions, particularly for older kids, providing sufficient access to power sources is paramount to keep their devices charged and operational throughout the journey.
These outlets serve multiple purposes, accommodating chargers for computers, phones, and tablets, as well as connections for DVD players, Blu-Ray players, CD stereos, and AM/FM radios. While some of these entertainment options may seem outdated to tech-savvy youngsters, the limited options within a trailer make them valuable alternatives to keep boredom at bay.
Given the increased electricity demand from these electronic devices, it’s important to assess your travel trailer’s battery capacity. Here are some key considerations regarding trailer batteries:
- Virtually all electrical components within the trailer rely on battery power, including lights, furnace heater fans, water pumps, entertainment systems, and various gadgets.
- It’s advisable to recharge the battery once it reaches the 50 percent mark and avoid allowing it to discharge too deeply.
- A converter/charger facilitates the transition from AC to DC power for battery charging.
- Trailer batteries typically have a lifespan of three to five years, influenced by factors such as climate and usage patterns.
- Regular maintenance, such as monitoring electrolyte fluid levels, can prolong battery life.
- During periods of inactivity, it’s recommended to remove idle batteries from the trailer and charge them to approximately 80 percent capacity to maintain optimal performance.
By addressing these electrical considerations, you can ensure that your travel trailer is well-equipped to meet the power needs of your family’s electronic devices while on the road.
5. Prioritizing Dining Amenities
As your children grow, so do their appetites, often leaving you feeling like they’re eating you out of house and home. Transitioning to life in a travel trailer requires careful consideration to ensure your family’s dining needs are adequately met. While space constraints in the trailer may not allow for an exact replication of home dining experiences, you can strive to create a comfortable and functional dining environment.
Investing in a spacious refrigerator and freezer is essential to accommodate your family’s food storage requirements. However, it’s crucial to strike a balance between size and weight to avoid overloading the trailer. If the standard fridge size doesn’t meet your needs, consider upgrading, bearing in mind the associated costs, which can range from $200 to $600 for RV refrigerators.
When it comes to meal preparation, some travel trailers offer amenities like ovens, cooktops, and microwaves, particularly in higher-priced floorplans. A microwave can be particularly convenient, especially for independent tweens or teenagers who can prepare meals for themselves with ease.
In terms of dining space, a basic fold-out dinette may not suffice for larger families. Opting for a trailer with a larger kitchen nook, featuring a kitchen bench or U-shaped table capable of seating five, six, or more, ensures everyone can gather comfortably for meals. While larger kitchen nooks may necessitate sacrificing space elsewhere in the trailer or opting for more expensive floorplans, they promote family togetherness and enhance the overall road trip experience.
By prioritizing dining accommodations in your travel trailer selection, you can create a welcoming environment where your family can enjoy meals together and make lasting memories on the road.
6. Emphasizing the Importance of Ample Storage
Packing efficiently for road trips is second nature to you. You’ve mastered the art of bringing versatile clothing items that can be layered and restyled as needed, leaving behind non-essential personal belongings and valuables. However, when it comes to your kids, their perception of essentials may translate to an abundance of possessions.
From phones and tablets to computers, video game systems, blankets, toys, and games, the list of items they deem necessary can quickly fill up available space in your travel trailer. While encouraging your children to pack light is advisable, it’s essential to acknowledge that certain belongings may be non-negotiable to them.
Therefore, ample storage space in your camper trailer becomes a necessity. While examining floorplan blueprints online is a good start, nothing beats seeing a trailer in person before making a purchase. Trailers often feature foldaway, retractable, or hidden storage areas that maximize available space in these compact vehicles.
These storage solutions, including cubbyholes and spacious compartments, offer practical ways to organize toys, contain electronics and their accompanying cords, and declutter living areas. With luck, you might even secure a storage compartment or two for your own belongings amidst the chaos of family possessions.
By prioritizing storage capacity in your travel trailer selection, you can effectively manage the plethora of items your family brings along on road trips, ensuring a tidy and organized living space throughout your travels.
7. Recognizing the Benefits of High Ceilings for Growing Families
Watching your children grow from cradle-bound infants to almost-high-schoolers can feel like a whirlwind. With puberty often comes a sudden growth spurt, transforming kids into towering “beansprouts.” In a travel trailer, accommodating several older, taller kids can pose a challenge due to limited ceiling height.
Perhaps you’ve experienced the discomfort yourself—how many times have you found yourself ducking to avoid hitting your head while navigating from the bedroom to the bathroom or kitchen? Most travel trailers feature relatively low ceilings, necessitating a constant vigilance to avoid collisions.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. You and your growing kids shouldn’t have to compromise comfort and risk back pain simply to move around your trailer. Prioritizing ceiling height when selecting a family-friendly travel trailer can make all the difference.
Fortunately, taller trailers do exist, with many Forest River models renowned for their increased ceiling height, reaching up to 80 inches in some cases! Floorplans like the 36BHBS, 31KQBTS, and the 30KQBSS for 2019 Wildwood models offer both generous ceiling height and ample space to comfortably accommodate up to nine people. With such spacious interiors, your kids could even bring a friend or two along for summer road trip adventures.
Even if you’re not particularly tall, you’ll appreciate the benefits of higher ceilings. They create a more open and inviting atmosphere, reminiscent of home. With no risk of head bumps, you’ll feel freer to move around and stretch out comfortably. Who wouldn’t appreciate that extra breathing room?
8. Opting for Hardwood Flooring for Easy Maintenance
Let’s face it—kids aren’t always the tidiest bunch, especially when they’re still mastering their table manners. Factor in the motion of a moving vehicle, and you might find yourself dealing with more spills and messes than anticipated. Sticky residues from sodas, juices, and sweet snacks require multiple wipe-downs to remove, while crumbs from various snacks can easily become lodged in hard-to-reach corners, inviting pests like insects and mice into your vehicle.
To mitigate these challenges, I strongly recommend prioritizing hardwood flooring when purchasing a travel trailer. While carpeting, even low-loop flat varieties, can conceal crumbs, stains, and other food particles, hardwood flooring offers easier maintenance and cleanliness. With hardwood flooring, daily sweeping and weekly mopping suffice to keep your living space clean and free of debris.
Moreover, hardwood flooring leaves fewer hiding spots for food particles, reducing the likelihood of attracting pests that could cause damage to your trailer’s components and pose health risks to passengers. Don’t let pests wreak havoc on your trailer—opt for hardwood flooring to maintain a clean and hygienic living environment for you and your family.
9. Enhancing the View with Picture Windows
Long car rides can test even the most patient of children, with the timeless question “are we there yet?” echoing through the vehicle. While modern technology can offer some distraction, children can still grow restless sitting in the trailer for extended periods. As you and your spouse focus on navigating from the front, it’s important to provide the children with something to captivate their attention.
Picture windows offer an excellent solution, allowing children to observe the passing scenery and perhaps develop a newfound appreciation for the world around them and the beauty of nature. Beyond mere entertainment, these windows can help minimize complaints and restlessness, contributing to a more harmonious travel experience for all passengers.
By incorporating picture windows into your travel trailer, you not only enhance the view for your children but also foster a deeper connection with the journey itself, creating lasting memories of shared adventures and scenic landscapes.
10. Exploring Toy Haulers for Family Adventures
If your quest for the perfect travel trailer for your family comes up short, don’t hesitate to broaden your horizons. Our fellow RV enthusiasts here at Camper Report can attest to the merits of toy haulers for family travel. In fact, these trailers often rival—if not surpass—the size of traditional travel trailers.
If you find that space is limited in your chosen travel trailer, especially with multiple passengers, a toy hauler could present an appealing alternative. These trailers often boast larger bathroom and kitchen areas, increased storage capacity, and additional sleeping accommodations, catering to the needs of larger families.
Remain open-minded as you explore your options. Ultimately, the key is to prioritize your family’s comfort and happiness above all else. Whether that’s in a traditional travel trailer or a versatile toy hauler, the most important thing is that your family feels at home on the road.