How to Survive RV Life

If you've even spent any amount of time in a travel trailer or an RV, you know the conditions are, cozy. Some RVs are luxurious and spacious enough for two people to live quite comfortably. Others have barely enough room for one person to sleep in.

While some people may have grand ideas of what trailer life is like, a few days after you put your family into that 30 foot trailer, you may question your sanity at the time you decided to do just that. Don't get me wrong, trailer life is actually pretty great once you get used to it; but neither is it all sunshine and roses. Here's a few things to be aware of and prepare for, for living in the small spaces of an RV.

Know you'll be elbow to elbow and make peace with it. Get that out of the way and the cramped conditions won't seem so bad. You'll probably even laugh at the ridiculous things you do to get around each other. By the end of your time together, you'll be much closer than you were before.

Down size. A lot. Believe it or not, you don't need 10 pairs of shoes, 50 tops, and 23 pairs of pants.

If your closet looks like this...

...no can do.You're gonna have to pare down and get the amount of clothing you bring with you in your trailer to look more like this. Yes, that's about all you're going to have room for.

Depending on how long you're going to be living in your trailer/RV you may have to have a box of seasonal clothes stashed under the bed or in another one of the less accessible storage compartments.

Do stuff outside the trailer as much as possible. This will help keep the feeling of being packed in like sardines at bay, and maybe you'll get to see and do things you've never done before. Go to work, take a walk, go for a bike ride, hang with friends, go on that hike you've been dreaming of doing.

Get a Kindle. I'd like to make one thing clear; I am a firm believer of holding a paper book in your hand. You can't beat the smell, the feel, or the satisfying thump of closing a heavy book. However, you may not want to haul around an entire library in the form of hard copy books. A Kindle will free up a lot of shelf space and you can still take as many books with you as you want as an audio or ebook.

Add your own hooks and shelving. Trailers are already designed to efficiently use all the space available; well, most of it. There's still a little room for some modifications of your own. Add hooks to the cabinets to hang up your mugs and free up shelf space. Put another shelf or half self in the pantry, or at the end of a bunk bed (if you have them) to provide space for personal things (I may or may not have a bunch of books crammed onto mine). You can also add a rod to the shower to turn it into a extra closet if you're not going to use it much.

Trailer life isn't for everyone. But hopefully these tips will help give you an all around better experience in your RV, whether that life is for you long term or not. Now you can go and enjoy some R&R, a family trip across the country, or just live life in your home sweet trailer.