Things I wish I had known driving a new camper home.

Buy levels and put them on at the dealers. They are the masters at quick leveling of campers. Install levels while it’s there to save you time.

You will need mirror extensions for your vehicle. My truck has lovely side bubble mirrors already in the rear-view mirrors that I assumed would be sufficient in viewing my 17 footer. It’s not.

Be super familiar with the jacks.

Mine comes with an electric jack that I immediately blew a fuse on my first attempt at unhooking it. It was because the driveway was at an angle, and before I knew it, my truck’s ass was 1 foot in the air because the ball was stuck. Be sure to put blocks under the jack for first time unhitch.

Have a location you can practice driving it around. I’m in a retirement community, which is perfect! I haven’t even attempted the thruway yet, more to come.

Your outlets in the camper do not work off the battery.

In retrospect, it makes sense (no inverter), but for a newb – you see you have power to other stuff, why wouldn’t the outlets work? They only work when you’re plugged in. Ahhhhh, well that would have been nice to know.

The battery will die in a few days of not being hooked up, even with everything off. In all the ‘extras’ I got, I wish I had gone with a second battery and solar panel hook up, hopefully one day.

My un-named camper remains in a storage lot til further notice. But I’ll tell you, trial by fire seems to be the way you learn camper things. Until the next fire!

Cheers,

xx Katie