RV pre-trip checklist for travel trailer packing and planning: campsite, route, food, home prep, and final items before leaving. Organized by days to departure.
This RV pre-trip checklist organizes packing and planning for a travel trailer trip, from a week before you leave through departure morning. Confirm the campsite and route first, plan meals and supplies next, then load the trailer and collect the last things from home.
Work through the sections by days until departure: seven days out, three days out, two days out, the night before, and the day of the trip. Doing the trailer pre-check early gives you time to deal with a problem before departure morning.
Before leaving, load cold groceries, keep road snacks and medications within reach, and collect keys, phones, and chargers after overnight use. Then use the separate Hitch & Go Safety checklist for hitching and departure safety checks. This page helps you prepare for the trip; follow your trailer and equipment manuals for inspection and operation.
Time-staged beats one big list. Most departure-day disasters were a T-2 task nobody did. Work through this week by week — the earlier tasks are confirmations and research; the later tasks are physical checks and loading.
Do these checks 2 days out, not the morning of. If the battery is dead or the propane tank is empty, you have time to fix it. On departure morning, you don't.
Starting the fridge 4–8 hours before departure is not optional. An RV absorption refrigerator takes that long to reach temperature. Packing warm food into a warm fridge is how you get sick on day 2.
Keep drive-time essentials in the tow vehicle. Load cold groceries in the RV fridge or cooler; keep the things you'll need on the road within reach.
Reserve a dump station stop in advance if your destination doesn't have one. Some campgrounds charge heavily for dump-station-only visits. Know your options before you're full.
Charge everything the night before — power station, phones, kids' tablets, and the trailer battery if you're not on shore power. There's never enough time on departure morning.
Confirm your reservation 48 hours out. Campground reservations do get cancelled or overbooked. A quick call or app check prevents arriving to find your site occupied.
The week before: confirm reservation details and campground access for your trailer's length, inspect trailer tires for pressure and condition, top off propane, replace or flush the water filter if needed, check battery charge, and do your grocery run for non-perishables. Three days before: complete packing and load non-perishables. The night before: load the cooler, charge all devices, pre-fill the water tank if dry camping. Morning of: load final items, hitch up, and run the hitch safety checklist before driving.
Fill your fresh water tank before trips where you won't have hookup access (dry camping or boondocking) or where your destination has uncertain water quality. For campgrounds with full hookups, connecting directly to city water keeps your tank fresh and avoids carrying the extra weight. If you fill the tank more than 48 hours before the trip, add a small amount of water tank treatment to maintain freshness.
The week before departure: check tire pressure and look for sidewall cracking or uneven wear, verify all running lights and brake lights work, test trailer brakes with the in-cab controller, confirm battery is charged, and inspect the roof and exterior seals for winter damage if it's the first trip of the season. On departure day, run the full hitch safety checklist before driving.
All 17 checklists, works without cell signal, installs to your home screen in one tap.