18 Travel Trailer Must Haves

Grab these travel trailer must haves to make your RV camping even easier and more rewarding!

While your travel trailer should come with the basics right off of the lot, there are multiple purchases that we’ve found make our day-to-day lives run more smoothly when we’re adventuring across the United States. 

We’ve upgraded and added many things to our Winnebago Micro Minnie, but all of these items would improve your travel trailer camping experience regardless of the make and model you have. 

It can be daunting to know you need to buy even more items after you’ve just purchased an RV, but the recommended things to buy for a travel trailer below will last for years and help you fall even more in love with camping. 

All of these items were tested by my family on our own camping adventures and in our own travel trailer.

The Camping Kiddos and I in front of our beloved little travel trailer at Florence Marina State Park in Georgia

This post contains affiliates. If you purchase through the links below, I will receive a commission at no charge to you. 

18 Best Things to Buy for Your Travel Trailer

In no particular order, here are the items that have made our many family camping trips even easier. 

(And best of all, most are inexpensive and can be purchased just about anywhere!)

1) Upgraded mattresses and/or mattress topper

During the process of purchasing our Winnebago Micro Minnie 1800BH travel trailer, we looked at many, many other trailers. 

Every single factory mattress was horrible. 

And it isn’t unique to those trailers. The factory mattresses we had on our pop-up were equally awful. 

Unless you have a back of steel, you’re going to want to at least purchase a foam mattress topper—if not completely new mattresses. 

That is also easier said than done since RV mattress sizes don’t align with your standard home mattress sizes. 

If you want to get new mattresses, you’ll need to buy them from a company that specializes in camper beds. 

PIN ME!

We purchased ours from The Foam Factory, and have used them for nearly a year now. Even though the website looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1994, the company is legitimate and the customer service is excellent. 

I was recommended the company from my dad who wanted to replace the factory mattresses in his Trail Manor trailer. He had such a good experience with them that I decided to order as well. 

The customer service department was patient through all of my questions and even followed up when they needed clarification on my order. The pricing was reasonable, and we got our mattresses—1 RV double and 2 RV twins—super quickly. 

NOTE: I paid for all of the mattresses myself, and this is not sponsored or affiliate content. I genuinely had a great experience with the company and recommend them. 

That purchase plus a couple of mattress toppers turned our RV sleeping from “meh” to “wow!”

You can get toppers from Walmart, Target, or a variety of other big box stores, but keep in mind that you’ll likely have to cut them down to fit. 

I’ve done this multiple times in our campers, and it’s tedious work, but is best done with a sharp pair of scissors and plenty of patience.

(Don’t use a turkey cutter, which I attempted after seeing another person do it online. The topper fluff went EVERYWHERE, and the cut itself was horribly jagged.)

2) Bungee cords

Yes, I know hydroponic green onions attached to the faucet is weird.

Get ALL the sizes because you’ll find so many ways to use them. 

We use the little ones to hold things to the sink while in transit. Call me crazy, but I love to grow fresh herbs in water in Mason jars. I bungee cord the jar to the faucet on travel days, and it hasn’t failed me yet. 

We’ve used medium ones to hold items together in storage during transit, or to keep items together at our campsite. 

The big ones work in a pinch for major issues: on our pop-up, one of the ties under the beds that holds the tent part down snapped, so a big bungee was perfect for keeping the tent taut for the rest of the trip. 

We’ve used bungees for everything. Keep a stockpile in your outside storage because you will find tons of ways to use them. 

This bungee bundle from Amazon has a bunch of sizes organized by color.

3) Water pressure regulator

You can see our water pressure gauge and surge protector here at our campsite in Lake Brantley State Park in New Mexico

This nifty gadget was recommended to us by about a dozen different employees at various campgrounds, and I finally broke down and bought one. 

The need for this little addition to your water hook-up is simple: RV systems are pretty delicate, and the pipes need babying. 

The water pressure coming in from the local water supply often has too high of a PSI, which can damage your trailer’s pipes over time. 

And that means water EVERYWHERE. 

With the regulator, you attach it to the end of your hose before hooking into your water source at the campground. 

The regulator shows low, standard, and high water pressure, and then ensures that the water entering your camper is at a non-harmful PSI. 

We have this easy to use Camco brass water pressure regulator with gauge.

4) Electric indicator and surge protector

Our surge protector in use at the Lake Hartwell Anderson KOA Holiday

This has been another lifesaver when our electric hookups suddenly stopped working (always just as we are getting the kids to bed!). 

We use it first before we hookup the electric when we pull into a site. 

Checking the electricity first gives us the opportunity to move to another site if things aren’t working—so we don’t have to hook the trailer back up again. 

Once we’ve confirmed that the electricity is working as planned with the proper voltage, we’ll complete the electricity hookup, keeping the electricity indicator hooked in as well. The indicator goes directly into the box, then we attach our trailer’s electric cord to the indicator. 

In the case of a sudden outage in our camper, we can look outside at the indicator to see if its a widespread campground issue or just something that needs to be reset on our individual camper. 

This gadget also keeps the current from the hook-up box flowing consistently into the camper and protects all of that equipment from a sudden surge. 

You’ll need to ensure that your surge protector works with your trailer’s amperage.

We have the 30 amp surge protector here, which I like for its bright, colorful lights.

The 50 amp version of that surge protector is here.

4) Black tank tablets

When we upgraded from our pop-up (with didn’t have a toilet or shower) to our current travel trailer with grey and black tanks, there was a steep learning curve. 

We read a bunch online, talked with others who had travel trailers, and ultimately thought we knew what we were doing. 

However—and I’ll spare you the gory details—we were missing a couple of major points when it came to using the black tank, which lead to me calling a mobile mechanic late one afternoon while we were in Texas. 

Our clogged issues stemmed from partially from not using enough black tank cleaner and partially from my idiocy in leaving the black tank valve open while we were at sites with full hook-ups. 

You need to be liberal with those cleaners, and we’ve found that the black tank tablets are fool proof, spill free, and easy to use and store. 

Buy them. Use them. Stock up on them. 

We’re using these pods in our black tank currently, and they’ve been easy to use with no mess.

Trying to decide between a pop-up camper vs. a travel trailer? Our helpful guide breaks down the pros and cons of each!

5) Back-up Black Tank Valve

Another valuable lesson that I learned about the black tank was that the cover is really, really important. 

What tipped me off to the issue mentioned in #4 above was when I couldn’t get my black tank to close properly our last night in New Mexico. We didn’t trust our existing black tank cover to stay on in case of a complete black tank seal failure, so I bought one of these easy to use black tank covers for piece of mind. 

Even after the issue got fixed later on that trip in Texas, I kept this cover on until we got back to South Carolina and were able to do some more permanent repairs than what the mobile mechanic was able to do. 

Even though those issues are fixed now, I still keep this black tank valve cover in our outside storage as back-up. 

NOTE: you’ll need to know how big your valve is on your trailer to ensure a correct fit.

5) Stick on mirror

While many travel trailers come with their own bathroom (or two!) with a mirror, it’s helpful in during the morning rush to have another mirror for everyone’s use. Our trailer is only 21’ long, and while it has a bathroom, there isn’t room for a mirror in it! We absolutely needed a mirror, but I didn’t want to risk the weight or possibility of shattering from a traditional mirror. 

Instead, we purchased these peel and stick mirror panels before our huge road trip from South Carolina to Winslow, Arizona, and they were worth every penny. 

The installation was super easy, and we didn’t have to make extra trips to the bath house just to braid hair, shave, or put on makeup. 

If I had literally anywhere else in our little camper to put more mirrors, I would!

We have this pack of 4 mirrors in our camper. They include a strong adhesive and are easy to hang. They haven’t budged despite being in the camper for over 3500 miles so far.

6) Clear food storage bins

Storage is a problem in travel trailers, no matter how big you go. 

In our Winnebago, like many other travel trailers, there isn’t a dedicated pantry, so we’ve had to use the area over the dinette partially as a pantry space.

However, it’s not super easy to see everything once you’ve got your groceries in there, so we’ve settled on organizing our food into plastic storage containers. 

Since these are see-through, it’s much easier to quickly spot the chips or trail mix instead of riffling through multiple bags and boxes. 

We loved this idea so much that we’ve done the same to our pantry back at our house, too!

The clear container set that we’ve purchased for both the trailer and our home pantry includes a variety of sizes and air tight lids.

7) Small tool kit

If you haven’t been RVing for long, here is a tough truth: something is always breaking on an RV. You’re essentially taking a tiny house down the highway at upwards of 60 mph while it shakes constantly for hours. 

It doesn’t matter if the trailer is the best build in the world, something is going to get loose, shake off, or bend a little over time. 

Be proactive and purchase a little tool kit to keep in your outside storage. 

You don’t need a lot, but those basics can come in handy when something inevitably breaks at 10 PM in a remote campground. 

I recommend including the following:

-hammer

-small nails

-interchangeable screwdriver (so you can have both Philips and flat head options)

-zip ties for quick fixes

-duct tape for even more quick fixes

-allen wrench

-flashlight

-extra batteries

A complete tool kit like this one takes the guesswork out of what you might need over buying each piece individually.

8) Broom set

When you’re camping, the outside constantly comes inside. 

This is doubled or tripled when you’ve got kids who are constantly moving from area to area. 

We have a travel sized broom set which has helped us keep the trailer clean. A quick sweep every night does wonders at tidying up. 

If your trailer is large enough to have a vertical closet, you could easily stick this in there when not in use. 

We keep ours in the shower or bathroom since we don’t have one of those. You could also easily store it under the bed or in your external storage compartments. 

9) Large outdoor mat

This mat—along with the broom—keeps our trailer relatively free of dirt even when we’re boon docking or camping in campgrounds with dirt pads. 

When we upgraded from tent camping to our pop-up, this outdoor mat was one of my first purchases and it’s held up well after nearly 4 years of constant use. 

We’ve used it at campgrounds like Lakewood Camping Resort in Myrtle Beach where there’s nothing but sand everywhere as well as when we were camping at Cherokee KOA which had a concrete pad. 

It also serves as a bit of a transition area like a porch would. We put our chairs here when we’re not sitting by a campfire as it is more comfortable on our feet (and cleaner) than sitting in the dirt. 

We have this black and grey outdoor mat from Amazon, which has been extremely sturdy over the last 4 years and 2 campers.

9) Hoses for potable water and grey tank drain

When we first got into trailer camping, we had exactly 1 hose for potable water, but completely forgot about one for flushing the grey tank. 

This is one area where you don’t want an item doing double duty, and you absolutely need 2 hoses. 

Thankfully, you can use just about hose for the grey tank hose, and these are available at everywhere from Lowe’s to Camping World. Just make sure they have the proper fittings for your trailer.

For your ease, color code your hoses. Our potable water is lighter without a stripe, while the grey tank hose has a darker color and a white stripe. 

For example, this white hose is for water.

This bright orange hose is for your tank clean outs.

NOTE: A hose is one of the most forgotten camping items as it hides in plain sight. Who thinks to pack a hose until you really need one?

Check out our full list of the most forgotten camping items, and download our camping packing list printable here.

10) Gloves for dump station/ black tank hook-ups

My husband is clearly enjoying the dump station at Bayou Segnette State Park in Louisiana!

Doing anything with the sewer is the least glamorous part of camping. (Ew.)

In my quest to learn how to do ALL the things myself—since my husband isn’t always able to drive, set up, and break down on our trips due to his work schedule—I decided to embrace the poo (but not literally) and figure out how to manage the black tank. 

To make the job as clean as possible, you should get some gloves.

Not only does this mean that I’m not having to touch things that have touched sewage, but the gloves also help me get a better grip on all of the valves required for the dump process. 

We’ve used heavier, gardening-style gloves that we wash after each use, and we’ve also used plastic disposable gloves. 

Of the two, I prefer the heavier gloves since they provide more protect and grip, but you then have to put them away from everything else and disinfect them thoroughly. 

These dump tank gloves are waterproof, sturdy, and easy to clean.

11) Small medicine kit

We’ve been very lucky on our travels and rarely get sick on the road, but I like to be prepared. 

Plus, when my kids catch something, they usually go down like the Titanic within minutes and need medicine ASAP. 

Just in case, we carry a small box of basic medicines in our lower cabinet.

These include:

-Tums for stomach upset after trying new foods

-Cough syrup, adults and kids

-Extra Chapstick for drier climates

-Sinus medicine (and/or nasal spray)

-Band-aids in a variety of sizes

-Neosporin

-Citronella bracelets for buggy areas

-Throat lozenges

-Thermometer 

12) Hatchet

Our son with our camping hatchet while hiking at Providence Canyon State Park

This is another must-have that you’ll use constantly. 

We have a hatchet for cutting firewood into smaller pieces (essential for starting a quick fire).

We’ve also used the back of the hatchet in lieu of a hammer in a pinch. 

Or, if you’re my 1st grader, you’ll haul the hatchet around while hiking in case of bears on the trail. 

This hatchet is lightweight, easy to use, and comes with a cover for safety.

13) Rocking camp chairs

Our Yorkie enjoys the last bits of sunshine while relaxing in our deluxe rocking camp chairs!

We go camping to be outside as much as possible, so unless we’re sleeping, getting ready, or cooking, we’re enjoying the campground. 

To accomplish this, we bought these deluxe rocking camp chairs because they are SO much more comfortable than a standard camp chair.

The seats are wide, and the mesh keeps us cool even on the hottest afternoons.

I love that you can rock in them since I’m basically an 80-year-old Southern grandma at heart.

These are also more durable than other standard camp chairs. We were gifted ours for Christmas a few years ago, and we’ve had them for both our pop-up and travel trailer.

We use them practically every night at every campground, and they are still going strong after years of being pulled in and out of storage.

14) Laundry bag

When you’re camping, it’s a guarantee that you’ll have plenty of dirty clothes from all of those hikes, beach trips, and road trip stops.

However, the travel trailer builders don’t seem to think that anyone actually needs space for those clothes.

So, you’ll have to make your own.

We have a laundry bag with a toggle closing, front mesh pocket, and backpack straps.

I keep our laundry detergent sheets, stacks of quarters, dryer sheets, and dryer balls in the mesh compartment.

The backpack straps are a huge help when it comes to hauling the full laundry bag to the launderette.

When we’re done with the laundry, I put the clean clothes back in our dedicated clothes baskets, and then put the laundry bag back in its lower cabinet. It’s much easier to store and use than a plastic basket.

15) Wheel chocks

They’re hard to see since they blend in with the tires, but our chocks are on either side of that first tire on the right.

True story: when we were camping at the Vineyards campground in Grapevine, Texas, I would wake up every night panicking that our trailer was going to roll backwards into the lake behind us.

I don’t know why I was so worried since we had wheel chocks, which makes it very hard (if not impossible) for a trailer to roll once they’re in place.

These didn’t come standard with our trailer, so you’ll want to have these in your storage compartment before your first night out camping.

If you’re particularly paranoid like me, I’d suggest 2 sets of chocks. Then, you can place one in front and behind each wheel for maximum stability.

While these are designed to be used when you’re not hooked to your tow vehicle, we also use them when we’re boondocking overnight at Cabela’s or a similar property.

That extra pressure on our wheels makes our trailer wiggle around less as we’re getting ready for bed or fixing breakfast.

16) Bedding

If you’re buying your trailer new, it might come with some cheap bedding.

I promise that you’re going to want to get something more substantial.

Each of the kids was able to choose their own bedding and throw blankets to make the camper feel more like home.

Not only is purchased bedding more durable and softer, but it gives you a chance to personalize your camper’s interior.

While we’ve seen other campers use Beddys, we’ve never pulled the trigger on that purchase since those sets are so expensive.

Instead, we picked out sheet sets and quilts that matched the neutral interior of our camper. We got ours from Target, and accessorized with additional blankets we already had from our house.

Note that the sizing for these sheets and bed covers are not going to be a perfect fit for your RV mattress thanks to the differences between standard mattresses and RV mattresses.

We have simply tucked any extra fabric under the beds, which has worked just fine over the years.

17) Small fan

There is nothing more miserable than a stuffy, hot camper.

While our electric hook-ups normally keep our Winnebago nice and cool, sometimes we’re boondocking and don’t have shore power available.

In those cases, our solar will run the lights inside and the water pump, but it’s not powerful enough as is to run the A/C.

We’ve gotten battery powered clip on fans for those nights, and they are wonderful. I like that we can move them around to ensure we’re getting the best airflow for each person.

They’re also inexpensive, meaning we can buy several and store them as needed.

This particular style of fan comes with a set of bendable feet, which is perfect for wrapping the fans around our bunk beds.

18) Sewer Drainage Hose

Fixing an issue with a water hook-up while we drain the tanks with our Rhino hose.

And, finally, we’re back to the black tank. (It’s one of those things that you really want working in top condition 100% of the time.)

While you might be gifted a drainage hose with your new trailer purchase, you’ll want to upgrade to a Rhino hose with a clear viewport on the end.

These hoses are super sturdy, which means you don’t have to worry about accidentally poking holes in them.

The clear viewport allows you to see the flow of water and other items from your black and grey tanks.

While seeing everything come out of your tanks is definitely gross, it’s also helpful in the dumping process since you can get a sense of how far into the cleaning process you are.