With the new year, comes new responsibilities, or maybe just a review of the old ones. Here are just a few ideas to help you get a handle on the off-season responsibilities. For instance, make sure that you replace the batteries in your smoke detectors, water detectors, and other life saving devices you may have in your travel trailer. If you have a tire pressure monitoring system, change the batteries before you pull the rig out in the spring.

It may be snowing, but there’s still Travel Trailer tasks to think about!

Check your fire extinguisher and make sure that it is fully charged and not expired. As a matter of fact it would probably be wise to buy another, larger, fire extinguisher as well. The stock fire extinguishers are probably too small to handle what could happen if a fire should start.

Also, don’t forget to keep that battery charged in the non-travel months if your RV is in storage. I used to take mine home and put it on a battery tender in the winter. If you leave your travel trailer in an outside storage location, check on it often. There are a number of reasons for this: 1) Travel Trailers are stolen more often than you might think. The odds of recovering it are probably not good, but will be better if the theft is discovered early. 2) Inspecting the trailer occasionally may help you spot a maintenance issue that needs immediate attention. 3) It should give you peace of mind that you are on top of things.

Also, it is not a bad idea to keep some sort of mouse poison inside the travel trailer. No one wants to deal with rodent issues. Mice will use whatever they can to nest, which is why we always say “empty your trailer completely before storing it”. We have always placed d-CON mouse bait in areas our dogs could not get to just to be safe (i.e. under the bed). We always remove it first thing in the spring. My Trailer currently sits on a cement pad under my shop overhang. Now I have bait traps outside the trailer that cannot be tampered with by Eva, our German Shepherd.

Once you get ready for your first trip, make sure you try all your systems. This means water and plumbing connections, electric, and propane. It will be much more convenient to take care of any issues before you leave home. Once you are at the campground, things become increasingly difficult and costly to take care of.

Make sure before camping in the spring that all family members know how to get out of the travel trailer should an emergency take place. Perform a drill and make sure everyone knows how to open the emergency windows. It should be second nature, as you cannot rehearse in an emergency. Have a plan on where to meet should an emergency take place.

Hopefully, this serves to get you thinking of things you need to do over the winter break. I’m sure most of you are eager to be camping already! Stay safe and warm!