Our family loves our little travel trailer. We use it as our mobile vacation home several times each year, and this year we planned an extended three-week road trip. This would by far be the longest stretch of time we’d ever spent in our camper.
To prepare, I spent a lot of time organizing our trailer to maximize the space. While we’ve had it for several years and it was already well-stocked and reasonably organized, this next-level organization was a complete game changer. Our trailer has become less cluttered, more functional, and easier to keep clean and organized. We went from feeling cramped to pleasantly cozy,
If you’re looking for ways to make your small space work for you, look no further. Here are some of my top tips.
SEE ALSO: EASY RV UPDATES – REMODEL YOUR DATED TRAVEL TRAILER WITHOUT PAINT!
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Tips to Organize Your Trailer
Use Command hooks. You don’t have extra floor space to dedicate to storage, so use the wall space! Not only do I use Command hooks to create space to hang jackets, towels, and my dish rag, but I also use them to hang up additional storage in the bathroom cabinet and my kids’ bunks. I love the Command hooks because they’re so easy to remove without damaging the walls if you discover you placed one in an inconvenient spot. I love these ones for smaller baskets (because the hook is thin, and also swings away from the wall if needed to make the basket hang properly) and these ones for jackets and larger items, though there are lots of different sizes, colors, and designs available.
Maximize vertical storage spaces. Most RVs have a closet or pantry, but there’s lots of wasted vertical space in there. My husband installed extra shelves in our pantry to cut the large vertical spaces in half and even made a couple of them pull-outs. He also built a shelf in the closet so we could store shoes or toys in a reasonably organized fashion rather than tossing them into the abyss and digging through the mess later when we needed to find something.
Break up drawers into smaller compartments. I took a page out of Marie Kondo’s book for this one. I took drawer measurements so I knew what sizes would fit, and got a bunch of small containers from Daiso (my all-time favorite place for storage options) to organize the drawers. The containers were stackable so I could maximize the space, and I rolled trash bags, dish towels, and rags so I could store them vertically for easy access.
Use baskets to organize long horizontal compartments. Our above-the-sink food storage and our clothing cubbies are just long vertical spaces where everything gets tossed about during travel, tumbles out when you open the door, and has been impossible to keep organized – especially during long stretches on the road. Simply breaking these areas up by storing food and clothes in baskets has helped keep everything organized and in place from the time we leave our home to the time we pull into our destination.
Use a shower basket. Your bathroom storage is probably the most limited of any of your areas. Don’t use up precious cabinet real estate for your shower items. Instead, use a basket. Simply place it in the shower/tub during travel and for everyday storage, and set it on the toilet when you are actually taking a shower.
Get ruthless about how much stuff you keep in your camper. I know it’s nice to be able to have all the comforts of home in your trailer, but if you have too much stuff, those “comforts” are going to make you cluttered and uncomfortable. Think carefully about what you can get rid of to free up space, and how you can get creative with multi-use items. Do you really need all those pots and pans? Can you get away with fewer dishes? How many toys or lawn games are your kids going to reasonably use? Are you carrying around enough blankets, sleeping bags, and camp chairs for three families? I recently switched all my linens to Norwex cloths because they’re multifunctional, easy to wash, and I don’t need to find space to store cleaning supplies anymore. Find creative ways to maximize space in your trailer with multifunctional items, and be both realistic and ruthless about what you give valuable real estate to.
Compartmentalize your hoses and cords. Stop fighting tangled cords or lost hose connections that get tossed around in your trailer’s storage compartment. Use plastic bins and storage crates to keep everything together and organized, so when you arrive at your campsite you just have to grab your designated crate and quickly hook up.
Less stuff and a better organizational system make it easy to keep your trailer clean and organized, and more comfortable for your whole family to enjoy. Whether your RV has tons of storage or only a small bit of space, there are always ways to maximize it and create more.
What are your favorite trailer-organization tips?
