First Time RV Camping Checklist
First time we took the old 2011 Coachmen out, I thought I had it handled. I did not. We rolled into Cedar Bluff State Park on a Thursday in May and I realized about three minutes after backing into site 14 that I had no sewer hose. None. My husband stared at me. The neighbor two sites over lent us his spare, which is the only reason I am allowed to tell this story.
An RV is not a bigger tent. That part nobody warns you about. There is water that goes in, water that goes out, propane, a battery that dies if you look at it wrong, and about forty small things you only remember when you need them at 9pm in the dark.
So I started keeping a checklist. Printed, on the door, the corner already curling. Below are the printable bundles and planners I actually pull off an indie design shop when I need a fresh one (yes, those are affiliate links, costs you nothing).
The Bundle That Lives On My Camper Door
This one is the workhorse. I printed the whole Ultimate Camping Checklist Bundle on regular paper my first go, taped it up, and within a week the steam from cooking pasta inside had it sagging like a wet sock. Second time I ran it through a $20 laminator from the craft store. Different life.
What I like is it is not one page. There are separate sheets for setup, teardown, food, the dreaded dump-station steps. I keep the teardown one clipped to the visor because that is when I am rushing and stupid.
Nitpick. A couple of the boxes are tiny if you print at full page on letter size. I scaled mine to about 95% and they got worse, so just print at 100 and use a fine pen.
A Little Cut File For The Window Above The Sink
Not a checklist, I know. But after three trips of staring at a blank beige wall, I cut this It’s Time For A New Adventure design in vinyl on my old Cricut and stuck it above the kitchenette window. Took maybe fifteen minutes including the part where I peeled it crooked the first time and had to start over.
The lines weed clean, which matters because the cursive bits on a lot of camping SVGs are a nightmare and you lose half the letters.
One gripe. The file came zipped with a few format folders and I clicked the wrong one at midnight and loaded a giant PNG instead of the cut file. My fault, but label your downloads, past me.
Soft Art For The Kids’ Trip Journals
My daughter, she is nine, wanted to decorate her own little trip book. I pulled the Watercolor Camping Time Clipart, printed a sheet of the tents and pine trees, and let her cut them out with the safety scissors. Kept her busy the whole drive to Lake Tenkiller.
The colors print warm and a bit muted, which I actually prefer over the loud cartoon stuff. On matte photo paper they look almost painted.
Heads up though. On plain copier paper the watercolor edges go a little flat and chalky. Worth the better paper here, or at least the heavier 32lb stuff.
Where I Plan The Trip Before I Forget The Trip
I am a planner. I write things down or they evaporate. The Ultimate Camping Trip Planner & Journal has pages for the route, the campsite reservation number (the one thing I always lose), meal plans, and a spot for what went wrong so I do not repeat it.
Last spring I filled in the menu page for our Buffalo River trip and realized halfway through planning that I had scheduled three dinners that all needed the same one pot. Caught it before we left. Small win.
The nitpick. It is a lot of pages. I do not print the whole thing every trip, I just pull the four sheets I use and leave the rest as a PDF on my phone.
The One I Hand To The Whole Crew
When it is all four of us plus my sister’s two kids, one planner is not enough brains. The Family Camping Planner and Journal has chore assignments and a packing grid per person, which ended the who-was-supposed-to-bring-the-marshmallows fight. Mostly.
I print one packing grid per kid and clip them to their bags the night before. They check their own boxes. Revolutionary, apparently.
One thing. The chore wheel page is cute but my eight year old nephew cannot read cursive yet, so I just wrote his jobs in block letters on the back. Works fine, the planner does not have to be precious.
My Running Record Of Every Site We’ve Parked At
This Camping Log Book interior is where I write down whether a site was worth coming back to. Which one had shade. Which one was forty feet from the bathhouse and smelled like it. I have been keeping these since 2022 and they are gold when I am rebooking.
I print it double sided to save paper, punch three holes, and it lives in a cheap binder in the cabinet over the bed.
Nitpick is real here. It is a KDP book interior, so the margins assume you are binding it. If you just print loose pages, set your printer to no scaling or the inner column creeps off the edge. Learned that the wasteful way.
The Slightly Different Log I Keep For Longer Hauls
Yes I own two log book versions. This Camping Log Book Planner interior has a bigger notes area per entry, so I use it for the week-plus trips where more happens worth writing down. Our ten days through the Ozarks last June filled six pages.
The weather column is my favorite. I jot the actual temps so next year I know what I am walking into and pack accordingly.
The complaint. There is a tiny apostrophe-style mark in the title art that prints slightly odd on some printers. Does not matter for the interior pages, just do not use the cover page if your printer is fussy about it.
The Simple Log For People Who Hate Logging
My husband will not fill out anything fancy. So I print him this plainer Camping Log Book & Planner interior, the one with the least going on, and even he manages a line or two per trip. Low bar, met.
He wrote exactly four words after our Devil’s Den trip. Bugs bad. Lake good. That is a complete log entry in his world.
Nitpick. It is pretty bare, so if you want prompts and structure this is the wrong pick. For a reluctant logger it is exactly right, which is the whole point of having three of these on my shelf.
The Dream List Taped Inside The Cabinet
The Camping Bucket List interior is the fun one. We sat around the fire at Greers Ferry, passed it around, and everyone wrote a place they wanted to take the camper. My kid wrote the Grand Canyon. My sister wrote, I quote, anywhere with a real shower.
I printed it big, taped it inside the cabinet door, and we cross one off when we go. Three crossed off so far.
The nitpick. The list lines are generous, which is nice, but it means the page fills up faster than you think. I am already on my second printout and we have been at this barely two years.
The One I Actually Type Into
Some nights I do not want to handwrite anything. The Editable Camping Log Book & Planner lets me type the entries on my laptop, save it, and print at the library when I have a stack to do. I batched four trips’ worth before our July loop and printed them all at once for like sixty cents.
Typing the campsite GPS coordinates straight in beats my handwriting, which even I cannot read after a long drive.
Gripe. The editable fields wanted a specific reader to behave on my machine, and the free one I had first kept resetting the text. Once I opened it in the right program it was smooth. Just check that before you fill out twenty pages.
The Lean Planner For A Quick Weekend
Not every trip needs the full family binder. For a fast two-nighter, this Camping Trip Planner interior is all I print. One page basically. Route, food, a short packing line, done.
I grabbed it for a last minute run to Mount Magazine when a site opened up Friday afternoon. Printed it at 8am, packed by ten, wheels rolling by noon.
Nitpick. It assumes a short trip, so there is barely any room for the dump and water log. For a weekend that is fine. For anything longer I switch back to the big planner and stop pretending I will remember things.
The Spinner That Marks Our Site From Down The Road
Okay, pure fun, not a planner. The Drive Slow Camping Wind Spinner design is the file I sent to a friend who does sublimation, and she made me an actual metal spinner that now hangs off our awning pole.
It is genuinely useful too. When the kids run back from the playground they spot the spinner before they spot the camper, so nobody barges into a stranger’s site. Happened once. Awkward.
The nitpick is on me, not the file. I picked colors that look great in the design preview but a bit washed in full sun. If you are making one, go bolder than you think you need to.
Frequently Asked Questions
What to take camping checklist?
Short answer, more than you think for an RV and less than you packed the first time. My non-negotiables after a few rough trips: sewer hose and gloves, fresh water hose (the white one, not the garden hose), leveling blocks, a surge protector, headlamps, and the dump-station steps written down so I am not guessing in the dark.
The rest is food, clothes, the stuff that makes it nice. But I learned at Cedar Bluff that the boring utility gear is what ends a trip early. So I keep a printed checklist on the door and I do not trust my memory anymore, because my memory forgot a sewer hose once and I am not over it.
Can I print these at home?
Yep. Every one of these I print on my own little inkjet at home, usually the night before while I should be sleeping. Regular letter paper works for the checklists and logs. For the watercolor clipart I splurge on heavier matte paper so it does not look chalky.
The only thing I do at the library is the big batch jobs, when I want twenty pages and do not feel like burning my home ink. Last time it ran me sixty cents. Either way, home printer is totally fine for the day to day stuff.
What file formats do these designs come in?
Depends on the design, and honestly I open the download folder and check rather than assume. The checklists and planners come as PDFs I just print. The log books are KDP book interiors, also print-ready pages.
The cut and craft ones, like the adventure quote and the wind spinner, came zipped with a few options inside. I clicked the wrong one at midnight once and loaded a huge image instead of the cut file. So peek in the folder first, find the one your machine wants, and rename it something you will recognize at 11pm.
Do I need a Cricut or Silhouette to use these?
Honestly? For most of this list, no. The checklists, planners, log books, bucket list, those just go to a printer. No cutting machine anywhere in sight.
The two I used a machine for were the adventure window quote, which I cut in vinyl on my old Cricut, and the wind spinner, which my friend made on her sublimation setup. If you do not have a machine, you can still grab the cut files and have a local maker do them, or just skip those and load up on the printables. I did the printable route for a full year before I ever touched the Cricut.
Before You Pack Up
If you take one thing from my Cedar Bluff disaster, let it be this: write down the sewer hose. Write down all the boring stuff. Tape the list where you will see it, laminate it after the pasta steam ruins the first one, and stop trusting your brain at 9pm in a dark campsite.
We are headed back out to the Buffalo River next month with the whole crew. The checklist is already on the fridge, the bucket list has one new line, and yes, the spare sewer hose is in the bin. I checked twice.
More Camping Ideas We Love
Heads up: some links in this post are affiliate links. If you grab a file we love, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only feature designs we would happily pack on our own trip.
