3 RV Life Surprises No One Really Talks About
I woke up suddenly at 2 AM to use the bathroom. Everything was perfectly still inside the RV with only the hum of our air conditioner fan circulating the air – a very familiar and comforting sound. Outside, it was virtually silent too aside from an adjacent RV’s A/C fan as well. I carefully crept to the restroom. My eyes were so tired that I could barely keep them open.
But then a moment of panic suddenly washed over me…
I had no idea where we were.
I mean, I knew I was up and using the restroom, of course. And I knew where my wife and kids were within the RV as well. But I had no idea where we were physically or geographically located. Obviously, we were in the United States…. somewhere. However, I couldn’t remember anything beyond that.
This may sound strange if you haven’t experienced this (…yet), but this disorienting feeling happens more frequently than I like to admit. It wasn’t until later after I had experienced this a few times that I shared this with my wife. Much to my surprise, this happens to her more every once-in-a-while as well while we’re out on our RV adventures!
Actually, at one point I asked my children about this and was surprised to hear that it happens to them often as well, but they somehow just seem less bothered by it.
So what’s going on here?
With this oddity set up, let’s briefly explore three things that no one tells you about RV life that can take you by surprise… or leave you feeling unprepared.
Disorientation
So where was I? I mean, where were we?
I finished my bathroom trip, turned off the light, then slowly pulled back the blackout shade to peer outside the window. As things slowly came into focus, I could tell that, obviously, we were in an RV park. I could see some dimly lit RVs all around us. But I still had no idea where we were or where we were going. Seeing the RVs all around us seemed to make my confusion worse — I just stared dumbfounded out the window – still so tired that I could barely keep my eyelids open.
After a moment, I gave up and quietly crept back to my bed, stared at the wall for a moment, then closed my eyes and went back to sleep.
ABOVE: A late night in an RV park can look very similar to many other places you’ve been. Actually, when RVs are parked this close together, it’s still difficult to orient yourself just by looking out a window. This is where one of these disorientation episodes happened for me.
It wasn’t until the next morning that I awoke and, once reality flooded back in, I could remember where we were and where we were going. We were stopped over at a park in the middle of the U.S. heading eastwards. I knew the town, the park name, and where we were headed.
Ok, fine – my memory is back and we’re thinking clearly this morning.
But what’s really going on here?
Well, when you wake up in bed at an established “sticks and bricks” house, especially if you’ve lived there for any considerable amount of time, you know exactly where you’re at. You know your room. You know the occupants of the house. You know the yard and where the house is relative to the street. You know the state and country you live in. Everything around you is familiar (unless you’re waking up from a multi-year coma, I suppose).
And, similarly, when you wake up in your RV, everything is just how you left it the night before. Not much really changes (unless a tornado rips a hole in your roof, I suppose – stay tuned because that’s coming up next…).
To your mind, you are here.
ABOVE: The interior of our old RV. Everything stays the same inside, essentially giving you no context that anything has actually changed on the outside even though you’ve been switching geographical locations.
In the middle of the night, the familiar “hum” of an RV park, the surrounding rigs, and the dim yellow lighting all seems to be the same. This files into you mind as a generic scenario — it’s just way too common. But with only that single reference frame, you could technically be anywhere!
Combine this with the normal dystopia people sometimes experience when they wake up from a deep sleep, now you have a recipe for confusion.
As the protector of the household (or RV in this case), it becomes extremely uncomfortable because now you don’t know what possible threats lurk just outside of the walls. Are we in a bad part of town next to the tracks or some drug-filled neighborhood with dubious people wandering about at night? Or are we in the middle of a Forest Service campground with wild animals, such as the illusive Sasquatch roaming about just inches on the other side of our thin RV walls?
Because this happens so often (to all of us — my wife and children — I later found out) while we’re on extended travels, we started doing a couple things to help reorient ourselves when we hit this issue again:
We affix the campground “rules and info pamphlet” to our small whiteboard by the front door. Yes, I know – this means after a bathroom visit we have to stumble over in the dark to the whiteboard to see where we are, but this has worked more than once!
Sometimes I put a quick note on my phone. Yes, this is not a great solution either because you have to grab your phone, unlock it, and stare at a bright screen to get reoriented. Actually, once in the middle of the night I tried to bring up Google Maps, but somehow it failed to load, so I was still left there laying in mystery.
However, the ultimate solution eventually came to us: we learned to put a post-it note right on the wall by our heads. Grab it off the wall and take it to the restroom so you can read it in the dim light and BAM — now you have a revelation while during your elimination.
So what is this about the roof ripping off like we mentioned earlier? Well, I’m glad you remembered that odd comment because…
Emergency Shelters
We had just arrived at our campground in northwestern Florida on a dull, overcast evening. We were so, so tired from all the insane traffic (why do you all drive like that down there? 😅😐) and alls we wanted to do was park the RV, make ourselves dinner, and watch our ongoing TV series.
However, while out in the drizzling rain hooking up the RV to utilities, we heard a sound no one likes to hear: an emergency alert blasted on our phones warning of a severe thunderstorm that was accompanied by a tornado warning.
We were slightly panicked because an RV is not the right place to ride out a tornado or severe winds. I’m sure you’ve seen some of the disaster photos and stories of sopping wet overturned RVs.
While trying to keeping calm as to not petrify our children, we stopped the RV docking process, hoped into our truck (which was, already unhitched from the RV), and drove up to the check-in station. Thankfully, the staff were still there, eagerly greeting us and getting us inside to their large, log cabin store and amenities center.
Once inside, the staff showed us the interior room we were going to retreat into if things got really bad.
In the end, nothing bad happened, thankfully, and once the warning expired we went back to our RV.
But on the same evening it happened again.
So back up we went, again, to the protected building and continued our fun (although slightly nervous) conversation with the staff.
Since then, we’ve been a little on edge. And also since then, we’ve now been conscious of RV parks that have absolutely zero options for emergency shelters.
Later in our Florida adventure travels off the extreme east coast, we stayed at a community where they did indeed have emergency shelters in the form of bathhouses. These bathhouses had cement walls, but still only a fragile wooden roof.
As luck would have it, numerous severe storms popped up during our 2-month stay at this particular place – two of which (on the very same night) sent us to the bathhous—err, shelters. It was, surprisingly, quite the bonding experience with some of the other residents of the community as we all gathered in the men’s room and shared stories about severe weather as stared at our phones for the latest weather radar information. At least we’d all have the same ending if the tornado had made it’s way over to where we were.
ABOVE: The aftermath of the storm. Unfortunately, we don’t have a photo of us waiting out the tornado in the bathhouse — it just seemed to inappropriate at the time. But you can see the severe flooding of the surrounding area. Since we had an RV, it sat up high enough that it wasn’t affected like these surrounding houses were.
It amazed us during all of these extreme weather experiences that although there were many residents or guests among us throughout these areas, only a small fraction of the people chose to leave their RVs and head for sturdier shelter. Actually, this is absolutely mind-blowing – especially with adventurers with children — that they (during both our examples above) decided not to take shelter in one of these approved buildings.
Our strong advice is this:
It is imperative to figure out at every campground, resort, or community that you stay in, where to go in case of an emergency.
This is something we always do now either by reading the information on the check-in / rules paperwork or asking a staff member. After we get settled in for the night, we now always either walk to or make visual contact where we’ll go in case such a fateful moment like that arises again. And, heck, it doesn’t hurt to walk over to one of the shelters and try the doorknob… just to make sure you can get in!
Your own is life is so sacred that it doesn’t matter what happens to your RV — it can be replaced or repaired.
Be prepared and take action!
But what happens if you and your RV get into a strange maneuvering situation that you didn’t expect? Now you’re in risk of doing some real physical damage – the kind that no one warned you about. Let’s talk about that next…
Ramps, Dips, and Bumps
We turned off the main road into a large cemetery entrance that was, in hindsight, way too small. We were just stopping briefly in this large Texas city to pay homage to a family member.
Once we pulled up to the turn for the gate, I knew at my core that we shouldn’t be taking this turn and entering into the cemetery this way. But after we circled the grounds on those extremely busy and crowded streets, it was the only way we thought we actually could fit into the area.
Taking the turn very wide and slow, we crept past the steep curbing, rubbing our tires on each side. It was now way more obvious than ever that it was too tight, but this maneuver already was blocking traffic, so we continued forward.
But then it happened – the horrific sound of scraping.
See, the last factor we hadn’t quite assessed before turning in was the degree of articulation the RV and truck would take. The road shoulder drainage dip was so low compared to the roadway and cemetery entrance, and the overhang of the trailer was just so long, that the tail end of the trailer was just too close to the pavement. Inching forward carefully (and now fully committed) the truck moved uphill while the trailer rear end pivoted downwards further onto the street… and continued to drag across it for a good few inches before it was clear.
It was painful.
I was quite afraid of what I was going to find after we parked.
I went around to assess the damage and clearly saw that our RV bumper flagpole mount (which, technically, should have been dismounted before we took off that morning) was completely destroyed. And with that, it took the bumper with it.
ABOVE: The picture I snapped as I examined the damage. Hopefully this is all the extreme it ever gets for my bumper.
While it’s not extremely obvious, if you were to bend down and really look, you can now tell our RV bumper is bent slightly upward. I was extremely relieved that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been; but this was a quick wakeup call on what could have happened if the angles were even just slightly more dramatic.
This, unfortunately, isn’t as rare as we’d like it to be.
Sometimes the angles on ramps or drainages leading into gas stations or other touristy spots are so dramatic that the rear of the RV will, at some point, make contact. Usually, we just drag our rear stabilization jacks against the pavement or ramps, but I have seen videos and images where things can get much worse very quickly — even resulting in some RVs having their back walls tearing away from the body.
Yes, obviously all of us are concerned about the sheer length of some of these tow vehicle and RV combinations. And we do take much care to maneuver them in tight spaces or, if possible, and avoid compact gas stations and parking lots completely.
But one thing we were never taught was about planning for and assessing vertical articulation.
Now, when we see large dips or bumps or ramps with steep approach angles while out in the wild concrete jungles, we try to carefully pull the trailer over them at a 45° angle rather than straight on. This helps articulate the axles in such a way that you can even out the porpoising effect of the trailer, thus avoiding some of the vertical tail drag.
Sometimes you can do this rather well… and sometimes you just can’t. If we see a potentially challenging or dangerous entry, we will either circle for a better approach, or we’ll just pass it on by and avoid some of these stops entirely.
ABOVE: If memory serves me correctly, this was another one of those gas stations where the entrance ramp and adjoining roadway were more dramatic than I felt comfortable with. Running extremely low on fuel and options, we decided to pull in . To this day I’m not sure how we didn’t scrape the tail end, but I do recall standing here thinking about the best way to exit to avoid more potential damage. Of course, I didn’t take a photo of this approach — it would be to the left of this shot.
In the end, it all comes down to experience.
You have to get out there and truly experience the adventure to understand all the potential curveballs that are thrown.
If you’re still deciding what kind of RV setup fits your actual travel style — not just the dream version — our RV Model Comparison service can help you think through length, layout, towing realities, and practical use before you commit.
As always, take it slow, be methodical, and then enjoy this incredible journey with your home-away-from-home safely in tow.
