Welcome to part 1 of me documenting what we are learning about owning a travel trailer. We are extremely new to this so I’m sure some of the things I mention will be wrong. Also, some of what I’m going to talk about is specific to our situation so what works for our trailer may not make sense for yours. But my main goal is to give general advice that can help other first timers regardless of what type of travel trailer is in your future.
We started getting serious about this adventure in early 2022. At the time we had a Toyota Tacoma that was great for the camping we were doing, but we knew it would be too small for the type of travel trailer we eventually wanted. We’ve had multiple Ford vehicles and loved them so we started by looking at the F-150.
So we built out our perfect model with a focus on features specific to towing. The max towing package meant we could tow the maximum weight possible for an F-150. I also did some research on axle ratios and chose a 3.55 axle ratio. Finally, I opted for an extended range 36 gallon tank. This is one of my favorite features because even when we aren’t towing anything, it means we can go longer between fillups. One thing we didn’t get that I wish we had is the telescoping trailer tow mirrors. We have some that strap on whenever we’re towing, and while they are a lot cheaper, they are nowhere near as good.
Once we had our perfect build it was as easy as emailing it to our local Ford dealer. Unfortunately this was during the time where there were chip shortages causing delays in new vehicle production. That was great for the trade-in value of the Tacoma, but we had to wait 6 months before our truck was finally delivered. Now that we had a tow vehicle we could start researching what travel trailers we could tow.
This is when the learning really began. Most people probably think there’s a single number that is the limit of what a vehicle can tow. That is certainly what I thought. Oh how wrong I was. I started learning acronyms like GVWR, GCVWR, and other parts of the towing capacity equation like payload and tongue weight. One of the best resources I found was a video from Keep Your Daydream that explains this topic and even has a link to a spreadsheet you can use to make sure you are towing safely.
The other thing I was doing during this time was making a list of all the gear I would need for any travel trailer, regardless of what size we chose. Here’s a very basic list of some of the gear I started ordering so we would have it as soon as we purchased a trailer. If you’re buying used, check to see if any of this gear might be included with the purchase. We were lucky enough to get several of these things included so we didn’t have to buy them ourselves.
Basics
- Sewer hose
- Sewer hose attachments
- Water hose
- Wheel chocks
- Leveling blocks
- Waterproof rug
- Electrical adapters
- Surge protector
- Gloves
- Tire pressure gauge
Security
- Hitch lock
- Coupler Lock
- Propane tank locks
- Security cable
- Apple Air Tag
Safety
- Fire extinguisher
- Extended Mirrors
- Weight distribution hitch
Extras
- Separate hose for flushing black tank
- Water filter
I think that’s probably enough for part 1 of this series. In part 2 I will talk about how we searched for used travel trailers and what the buying process was like.
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