Nothing puts a damper on a camping trip more quickly than an injury! While you can’t completely avoid injuries, especially in the great outdoors, we’ve come up with a list of tips you can do to help prevent them! Follow these RV safety tips the next time you head out for a fun, safe adventure!
Foam Noodles
Foam noodles are not only great to float around on in the lake or pool, but they are also great at protecting you from unnecessary injury at your campsite! With all the distractions at a campsite, it’s easy to not pay attention to where you’re going and walk head first into the awning struts and slide out corners, or run into the hitch that’s sticking out right at knee level! To avoid the embarrassment and painful encounter, use foam noodles to cover these areas. All you need to do is cut a slit in the side of a noodle and pop it on an awning strut. Use them to cover your slide out corners too. If they pop off, just use some clear packing tape to secure them. Then just add some around your hitch and your knees will be protected as well!
If you’re planning a fishing adventure while you’re out camping, create a home for your hooks with foam noodles. Cut a small piece of a foam noodle and pop your hooks down into it to secure them and lessen your risk of getting poked. They’re also great to have on board in case “the big one” pulls you overboard when trying to reel it in.
Glow-in-the-Dark Tape
Glow-in-the-dark tape has many uses when it comes to camping. Here is a list of some things you can use this great tape for:
- Put some on the foam noodles you’ve used on your awning struts. This will help you see where they are when walking around outside at night.
- Put some on the edge of your steps to your camper. When you’re fumbling around trying to get in or out of the camper, this will illuminate them so you can see them.
- Wrap it around the handle of your flashlight to make it easier to find when you need it.
- If you brought your bikes with you, wrap the handlebars in glow-in-the-dark tape. Kids will think it’s great but it will also help cars see you if you’re riding around in the dark.
- Running glow-in-the-dark tape around the inside if your exit door could be very useful in an emergency. If you need to get out fast, this tape will show you exactly where the door is.
- If you’ve brought your furry friend along, wrap some tape around his collar so you can see where he’s laying at night.
Protect Your Cords
When you need to use an extension cord to run power to your RV, this can leave the connections exposed. The risks of this can include a short due to water getting into it, or if you have kids running around the campsite they may want to unplug it. This exposes little fingers to the potential of getting zapped. Get an inexpensive bucket from the dollar store and put two holes in the sides near the bottom just a little bigger than your cord ends. When you connect the cords, run them both inside the bucket through the holes and connect them inside it. Then just flip the bucket over. This keeps that connection covered and up off the ground.
Emergency Info
If you find yourself needing emergency services in the middle of the night while camping, you’ll need to know your location. Attach a dry erase board to the inside of one of your RV cabinets. Once you reach your campsite, write the name of the campground, address, your site number, and a phone number on the board. This will make finding you much easier for an emergency response team.
Wasps
Wasps are never welcome house guests. Unfortunately they love the smell of propane, so your RV is very attractive to them. Not only do they pose the risk of stinging you, but they can damage your RV as well. They will tend to nest near the smell of the propane and can cause damage to your RV when building their nest. To keep them away, purchase a flea collar and break it into pieces. Place it near your propane connections to keep them away. They hate the smell and will find somewhere else to go instead.
Slide Out Safety
If you’re camping in a motorhome, your passengers are riding in the back while on your way to your destination. Put masking tape over the switches to your slide outs to let others know not to push them. If a slide out is deployed while driving, it can cause one side of the motorhome to become off balance and you could end up rolling it on a turn.
These tips and tricks should help to make your next adventure a little safer and help reduce risk of injuries. Camping trips are meant to help decompress, not stress you out, so anything you can do to make your time easier and more relaxing is a benefit! So get out there and see America through the windows of your RV!
