Camping/Camper/RV accessories

I bought this Lodge Sportsman Grill a few years ago and love it. The best $89.00 I have ever spent on camping accessories.....perfect for two rib eyes!

Lodge makes a griddle insert that fits on top of the main housing where the slotted grill is normally. That way you can cook eggs/bacon/pancakes for breakfast using charcoal for a heating medium. I have not bought the griddle insert yet but I hope to before my next vacation.

 

Here's a few modifications we added to our travel trailer that makes camping more enjoyable. You may have some of these already...

- MaxxAir vent covers - You can leave your vents open all the time No rain gets in and keeps mildew down in storage
- MaxxAir powered fan - Goes in one of the vent holes and has variable speed when you don't want to run the air. Great for sleeping.
- 3" Memory foam mattress topper. - Big sleeping improvement over the standard mattress
- 10 gal. Expansion tank added to the water line after the water pump. This stores the pressurized water and the loud water pump doesn't run every time you flush the toilet at night. Only used when a water connection is not available.
- 12 volt shutoff switch- Guarantees you wont drain the battery in storage
- Bunk Rails so the kidies don't fall out of the top bunk
- Added storage anywhere I could. Some additional shelves, added a door into an unused cabinet,
converted a tip out drawer into a silverware pull out door etc.

We do a lot of dry camping too without hookups so we have the stuff necessary for that too. Extra water, Two batteries, Honda EU2000, 110V Inverter, Webber Q200 grill etc...

 

That's a neat little grill. Lodge makes some nice cast iron.
Thanks for the tip, I've never seen this

 

Thanks, F1.
I need to find the mattress topper. We took the mattress off of the bed in the back and stacked it on top of our bed. But it is too long.
I like the expansion tank idea too. We haven't been anywhere that has hook ups.
Ours has the main kill switch outside with the other connections. But I thought most had the 12 v main kill switch?
We are working on storage also......Can't figure out why they put cabinets in without doors......
And there are many places an extra cabinet should have been installed. Like a bathroom linen closet....
Or a cabinet for riding gear/helmets in the garage

 

Thanks for the reminder about the mattress topper. The bed in the Wildwood is pretty hard.

Thankfully the camper we have has a ton of storage, at the expense of extra beds, but for us it works well.

 

I've never been "Camping" in a house on wheels (camper). I've nothing against them, but is that really camping or just having a temporary home away from home?

I just load up my bike (motorcycle) with a sleeping bag, cooking utensils, and either the 2 piece military olive drab tent or the Coleman style dome tent. Add spices, thin rope, a hunting knife, hatchet, magnesium fire starter, and maybe some canned goods in case I hadn't been able to kill something to eat, and I'm gooder to go.

Sorry about the quality of the picture. The scanner was on it's last legs and I can't find the original. The picture was taken back in 1999 or 2000

 

this is your folks Wildwood? or you have your own also?

 

This bed is called a queen. But its really short.
Where do I find these toppers and how do I know its the right size??

 

It was temporary. the bed needs to go back in. In case someone else goes with us. Which probably wont happen,
but Brian is still talking about going to Dennis' with us...

 

That's camping. So is truck camping, and backpacking.
We use our "camper" trailer as a second cabin up north.

 

It's my parents, but we are the ones that use it the most. My parents sold their normal house not too far from my house in SE Wisconsin, and they moved into the family cabin. The 2800 they paid for the nice used camper was the easiest and cheapest way to add more living space at the cabin. .

While we don't treat it as a mobile camper, we are doing as much as we can to upgrade it and make it more enjoyable.

 

I pulled out the "rv queen" mattress and burned it happily. That was a fun evening lol.

Save your money on the topper, and get some plywood, extend your bed platform, and get a regular sized queen mattress. $300 or less and light years better.

Those max air vents are worth the price also.

 

My family owned a campground and rented cabins while growing up and I worked there since I was old enough to kick rocks off a freshly graded road or use grass snips to trim around trees and fire pits (before the time of gas powered grass trimmers....the greatest invention to man kind IMHO ) until we closed the campground down when I was in my late teens. So while everyone else was having fun every summer and enjoying camping, I was working. I used to get out of school a week before everyone else to go to work to get the campground and cabins ready for the summer campers. In case you forgot, the last week of grade school was for fun and parties....or at least that's what I was thinking it was while cutting grass and raking leaves So when I say that the even the mention of camping left a bad taste in my mouth you'll hopefully understand.

Now having said that, I got married and had kids And guess what...everybody loves camping

Like most we started out tenting and sleeping on the ground but after enduring a few rain storms (usually started the morning you were going to pack up we upgraded to a used pop up camper. This was fun for a few years but again, if it rained while camping the pop up had to be re set up at home to dry/air out and put down when done. Easily done if I was home but I travel for work Mon-Fri most weeks in the summer and my wife XS was not really able to handle this. As the kids grew, we were outgrowing the pop up and with no private facilities, we upgraded a couple of years ago to 26' Heartland Prowler. Already have weekends in June and a week to Maine in August planned for this year.

Camping World has tons of great gadgets and I rarely head to the US without stopping at one, and most RV manufactures have forums to visit and see what others are doing.

Nice options that came with our RV.
- Slide out rear gear/bike shelf. Slides out to extend bumper and holds a couple hundred pounds. Easily carries our 4 bikes.
- Electronic door lock keypad (like a Ford). Don't have to worry about taking or losing your keys at the beach
- Book case headboard with AC receptacle for queen bed. Great for clock radio
- Power awning
- queen bed platform on struts with huge storage underneath.
- dealer added Max Air vents and diamond plated rock guard on front of RV.

Upgrades and favorite gadgets/accessories we have added include:
- I added the dual battery marine grade 12volt disconnect switch. (LPG detector can drain a 12 volt battery in a week or two).
- I added a 2.5 Watt solar trickle charger to the lid of my dual propane tank cover to keep my disconnected battery topped up and ready to go.
- A good woven ground mat (Costco buy)
- Collapsible storage/garbage bins and totes with lids to store small items and easy to slide into storage compartments
- 4'x2' folding table. Holds 12v cooler and camp stove outside door and fold to 2'x2'x3" for storage.
- I swapped the stock gutters for extended rubber gutters
- Weber Q200 BBQ

Still need to upgrade:
- mattress or add toppers

 

Your right the rv matress sizes are different than standard. We measured ours and ordered from Overstock.com, they have a large selection, and just went by the dimensions. I had to cut mine down a little bit to make it fit.

This is a better solution than the topper. I couldn't do it because my bed is in a slide out and the dimensions were fixed.

Whatever you choose will be way better than the RV mattress. Max air covers are really a good investment also.

 

Just "camped" this last weekend in our 26' (actually 30') Outdoors RV brand trailer. It's a Northwood product by the same folks that make Nash and Arctic Fox. Heavy and built tough. It's like having a cabin but portable. I tow with a diesel F350, lots of mountains here.

As others have mentioned get the Weber Q grill. Mine might be a Q100 or Q200, doesn't matter, they are awesome.

On the RV, I switched to an electric tongue jack. Use scissor stabilizers but always pack my dewalt battery powered drill and the appropriate socket to raise and lower the jacks with the drill easily.

We bought and really enjoy the coleman range top coffee maker. It is a drip coffee maker powered by the heat of a range. It makes 10 cups (about a normal house sized pot) of good coffee and requires no power.

For the generator we usually don't use one since the batteries are very good but when I have my dog (black pug) and am spending a weekend in a parking lot at a sporting event (my kids are swimmers and the meets last all day) I run a portable genset for the air conditioner. This is my second year with the awesome Champion 3100 watt inverter genset. It idles down and is very quiet, runs the ac unit with ease. I bought it from Costco for like 700$. Much much less than a Honda equivalent and the same dB sound output.

If you insist on hiking in to the wilderness and being away from it all then sure, use a tent. I like the RV crowd, the folks, the locations, the services, the camping parks are like golf courses and often have pools to swim. It's about rest and relaxation and unlike a hotel room NO bed bugs!