When we began our RV journey, we wanted to buy everything we thought could make this transition easier.

Some items, like the 10 listed here, are absolutely needed items. We would be lost without them.

However, other items were not necessary at all and they are ending up in the donation bin.

To help you save money, and feel confident in beginning your journey, we have put together a list of 10 items we believe you absolutely should have.

10 Items Every New RVer Should Buy

#1 Buddy Heater

This is one of the most used items we have purchased for our RV. The buddy heater is a small, portable propane heater. It uses way less propane than the furnace heater does. We have run this little heater all night, while we slept, and it keeps our 40 ft travel trailer nice and comfortable. With outside temperatures in the low 30s, our indoor temperature remained in the 60s with just the buddy heater running on low. Our RV is not a 4-season model, so it gets fairly cold inside when the temperature drops. To us, this buddy heater is absolutely the #1 must buy item. We purchased our Buddy Heater at Walmart, along with a hose that allows us to use a 20 lb propane tank, instead of the small 1 lb tanks. I will link the adapter hose on Amazon, so you can see the one we have. If you purchase the adapter hose, make sure it is the Mr. Heater hose. This hose is specifically made for the Buddy Heaters. If you choose a different brand, you will need to get the Mr. Heater Fuel Filter.

#2 Telescoping Ladder 

If your RV does not have a ladder built on it, you absolutely must have one. Getting on to the roof of your RV is actually a fairly common occurrence, especially for us with our solar panels. However, even if you do not have solar panels to clean and maintain, you will still need to get on top of your RV to clean the roof, tops of your slides, check your seals for any cracking, check for leaks, etc. Good RV maintenance is essential and with that comes a ladder. A telescoping ladder allows you to have a full-size ladder but it only takes up a fraction of that space for storage. We highly recommend you get one!

#3 Air Compressor

If you are a traveling family, like us, an air compressor is essential to your safety. Before each trip Kenneth checks the tire pressure in each tire and makes adjustments as needed. Proper tire pressure can help prevent and roadway accidents or tire blow outs. The safety of your family is important, an air compressor can help with that. We have our full-size air compressor that we had prior to traveling. It is fantastic, but bulky. If we were buying a new one, I would absolutely be looking into a compact or tankless model.

#4 Coupler Lock for Tongue of Travel Trailers 

Join any RV Facebook group and you are bound to see someone posting about their RV being stolen. As fulltime travelers, our RV is our home. If it was ever stolen, we would be homeless. So just like with a sticks and bricks you want to protect your home from theft as much as possible. If you have a travel trailer like us, a good quality tongue lock is essential. Spend the money and protect your home!

#5 Hockey Puck Lock 

This thing has a silly name, but it is very important. It goes along with the Coupler lock in #4. This lock locks that the tongue lock in place. Could you get just any lock? Sure. But, this lock has all of the locking mechanisms on the inside. This deters lock-picking and trying to cut it off with bolt cutters. Again, this is your home. You do not want to skimp on protecting your home. The piece of mind it gives you is worth the price.

#6 Sewer Hose

A hose to empty out your black and grey tanks is kind of important. The different styles of poop hoses on the market is a little confusing. What makes one hose better than another? Well the one we have is absolutely one we recommend. I like that it is orange, so it is easy to see, decreasing the chance that I will trip over it. Kenneth likes that it is squishable. If you step on it by accident, it just pops right back up. And as gross as it sounds, its pretty great that this one has a poop viewing window. When you are emptying your tanks, you need to actually see that they are emptying. If nothing is flowing you have a problem. The window makes that really easy. You can just glance down and see that everything is flowing, when its done you can see that too.  

#7 X-Chocks 

A way to keep your RV from rolling away is a must. We have seen people just stick something in front of or behind the tires, but that doesn’t seem the most secure way of going about it. The X-Chocks on the otherhand are completely secure. They go inplace right between the tires, so you know your tires are secure and not going anywhere. They are simple to use. They are easy and quick to install or remove. Plus, they decrease the amount your RV bounces with children and dogs running all over the place.

#8 Levelers

Levelers are essential to setting up your RV. Not every site you go to will be perfectly level, and when a site isn’t level you will know it. Your doors won’t open and close right, stuff will slide across the table, and sleeping will be completely uncomfortable. We like the levelers we have because we can completely adjust them to suit our needs. Just stack them up, drive up on them, and you are good to go. Other than that, they also are multipurpose. We use them under our tires if the ground at our site seems a little squishy. We also use them under our stabilizer jacks, to give it a little room to bend. In case you did not know, your stabilizer jacks should always have some bend in them. If you put them all the way out they do not work as effectively.

#9 Tire Pressure Monitoring System 

I honestly believe you should not be pulling a trailer or fifth wheel without a tire pressure monitoring system in place. It is so simple to install, and it can literally save your life. We have been super thankful for ours. We were driving across the state of Texas, not long after we began our fulltime traveling journey, when the tire pressure monitoring system alerted us to a sudden decrease in tire pressure. We had run over a nail somewhere and a tire was going flat. Can you imagine pulling a 40 ft travel trailer down an interstate and all of a sudden you have a flat tire? We can, but luckily we did not have to experience that. The tire pressure monitoring system allowed us to know when the pressure was beginning to drop. Kenneth was able to get us on the side of the interstate, put some air in the tire with our handy dandy air compressor, put a tire plug in, and we were on our way again. No accident. No blow out. No damaged rims or replaced tires. With that experience, its no wonder the tire pressure monitoring system made it on our top 10 list.

#10 Level

A level may not be something you think you need when traveling around the United States, but if you plan to do that traveling in a RV, a level is a must have. Every single time you set up your RV, you need a level. The level helps you to know if your RV is level, if you need to add some levelers under one side or the other, or if you need to raise or lower the tongue jack. It is absolutely something you can not do without. We just have a normal level you can get in any home improvement section. The longer ones allow you to be more accurate, but I have seen some get by with a smaller version. Its easy to just find a spot in a storage space to stick it out of the way, so there really isn’t any excuse not to have a level. It will save you so much headache during setting up your camp.

If you want some more reviews on what items are good for the RV life style, check out this post where we talk about what we thought we needed and if it actually worked with fulltime travel.