Our family has hauled our 30′ travel trailer from Pennsylvania to South Dakota – Wyoming – Colorado – Utah – Arizona – Tennesse – and all over New England. The four of us nestled into our Ram 1500, we’ve taken trips that have covered more than 6,000 miles over a span of 23 days on the road. Our travels all have one thing in common: I haven’t driven a single mile during any trip. Not ONE single mile.
Maybe that information should be embarrassing to share, but I don’t actually feel any shame at my lack of camper towing experience. Mike LOVES to drive. We (I?) dream of him getting his CDL in retirement so that “we” can pick up a cross-country route and hit the open road. (In this daydream, I am sitting in the passenger seat reading, singing, and watching the landscape roll by and Mike is driving).
But as much as I enjoy being a passenger – and Mike truly does enjoy driving – there is a little “what if” voice in my head on each trip we take. What if something happens and Mike can’t drive? Do I really want my first camper towing experience to be on a blustery I-70 across Minnesota? No, I do not. So, when our local RV dealership offered a free “RV Driving/Towing School Seminar” I signed myself up! With the class completed, I am proud to report that I feel confident hitching the camper up to the truck and hauling it across the country ALL by myself. Mind you: I don’t want to hitch up and haul all by myself – I like my traveling crew, and still prefer being a passenger. But oh the sense of accomplishment and confidence knowing that I CAN do it.
So – what did my “RV Driving/Towing School Seminar” entail, and why was it so awesome? Here it is….
Part I: Hitching Up the RV Lesson
When I registered for the seminar, I marked that I would bring my own truck and travel trailer. Both parts of the lesson ended up being in a dealership truck, with a dealership travel trailer, so hauling our camper to the dealership ended up being unnecessary. Even though I wasn’t working with my own truck, hitch, and trailer, I still felt as though everything I learned could easily be applied to my own rig.
A really friendly employee from the service department walked me through hitching up the travel trailer and sway bar from start to finish. I help Mike with this job often, but my role is always limited to guiding him in lining up the ball and coupling. “Little to the left…..oops, nope, too far….ahead a little…..nope, too far…back up a little….that should be perfect!”. And then I go back to my campsite pack up chores.
Needless to say, given my limited previous experience in “hitching up” the camper, I learned a LOT today. Not only do I now know how to safely and securely hitch up the travel trailer, but I have a far better understanding of weight distribution and why each step matters. My favorite takeaways were:
- Towing is much safer than my generally anxious mind realized. Having the travel trailer come completely detached from the truck would require the breakdown of multiple layers of support.
- Should the camper become detached during travel (which is, phew, very rare), the camper will stop. My anxious daydreams have always envisioned a runaway travel trailer careening recklessly around a highway. In reality, one of the steps of hitching the trailer to the truck is to connect a camper brake line to the hitch. Should the camper ever become detached, this brake line would break free at a fuse that would then enact the trailer’s brakes.
- Weight matters. Where you put the weight matters. We’ve always packed the majority of our weight in the truck bed (7 gallons of fresh water, bicycles, and a Champion 5500 generator when dry camping), and the vast majority of the rest of the weight we are carrying in the center of our travel trailer. We’ve always packed this way simply because of the layout of our camper, but as it turns out, we’re packing our weight correctly. When hauling a travel trailer, the weight should be distributed throughout the camper, or focused toward the middle of the camper.
Part II: Driving Lesson!
Once I learned how to safely and securely hitch the travel trailer to the truck, it was time to take the driver’s seat. Can I just tell you, I was in a little bit of shock at how cavalier they seemed in letting me take the wheel of a dealership-owned truck with a brand-new travel trailer attached. Yikes!
Lesson one was setting up the rearview mirrors – and it wasn’t what I would have expected. I was instructed to set the mirrors so that I could see just the line of the front of the camper in each, giving me a long view along each side of the camper.
With mirrors set, we hit the road….err, parking lot. A parking lot FILLED with brand new RVs mind you. No pressure. But the confidence my instructor had in me was invaluable in making my lesson a success. He seemed so incredibly certain that I could, indeed, drive around the lot AND back into a narrow space, that I started to believe him.
Lesson two was turning, which he explained as making a question mark – i.e. you have to pull up, out, and around to make a turn without hitting a curb.
After a few successful turns, it was time to back the travel trailer into a narrow spot between cones, just like so many back-in campsites that are always going for a few fewer dollars at campgrounds across America. And now I know why. If you can back your camper into a narrow space, you’ve earned that discount.
Lesson three was backing in. If you’d like your camper to back into a narrow space to your left, you turn your wheel to the right. I think I will still be contemplating the physics of this reality for the rest of my life, but it is true. After lining up your camper into its space by turning the steering wheel the opposite direction that you would like the camper to go, you then “follow” the camper back into the space, which requires turning the wheel hard in the SAME direction you originally wanted the camper to go.
I would love to tell you that I mastered the art of backing a camper into a narrow space on my first attempt, but I would be lying. There was a lot of “straightening it out” and a lot of starting over. But it was far less tense than the driving lessons I remember from my teen years, and in the end, the camper was backed neatly in between two rows of cones. Success!
Part III: Practice Makes…Less Nervous?
I was so excited with my new skills, that I offered to drive the truck and camper home. Ultimately I didn’t because someone had to take our oldest to baseball practice, and I don’t think I’m quite up to the task of backing the camper into the garage without help. But I am so excited for our next camping trip and have promised myself I will drive at least a part of the miles covered.
While waiting for my lesson to begin today, I had a chance to talk with another RV owner waiting for a service appointment. Like me, she admitted that she does NONE of the driving while towing an RV, and I’m sure the two of us can’t be the only RVers uncomfortable with taking the wheel of their rig. And for a good reason – hauling a camper comes with a huge responsibility for the safety of yourself, your passengers, and everyone else on the road. I’m so thankful my local dealership offered this course today and hope that more RVers have the opportunity to take a course like this to keep RV travel safe for everyone.
If your local dealership doesn’t offer a seminar like this one, but you are interested, I would highly recommend reaching out to them and asking! Programs like this are great PR for dealerships, help strengthen the relationships between dealership and customers, and gets families in the door. (Mike and both boys picked out their choice for our next RV from floor models while I was driving and couldn’t wait to show me when I was finished with my lesson).
Have you ever taken an RV driving lesson? Are you nervous about driving your RV? Do you have any great tips for safer driving practices? Leave me a comment – I’d love to hear about your experiences learning to confidently drive your RV!
