Everyone loves a good RV camping trip, but nothing is worse than camping around someone who is loud, obnoxious, or dirty. While most RV travel experts know the rundown on how to act at a campsite, not everyone is a hardened RV veteran, so there are a few simple etiquette rules that should be followed. Most of these come down to just being mindful of your fellow campers and neighbors, but there are some things that are somewhat easy to overlook.
Don’t Walk Through Other Spots
At campgrounds, a person’s RV spot is their own little temporary home away from home, so walking through someone’s RV spot is basically walking through their lawn. While it’s really rude to walk through a site that isn’t yours, it can also lead to some unexpected results. You never know what you might step in when walking through someone else’s site. Whether it’s a surprise pile of dog poo or a hidden kabob skewer, you never know what you might step on when going where you aren’t supposed to go.
It boils down to just being courteous of your fellow camper. You wouldn’t want someone perusing through your personal space, so why would you want to do it to someone else? Some people even have a tendency to resort to violence when presented with trespassers, and that’s just a worse time for everyone.
Be Chatty at Responsible Times
To be completely up front with this, we have zero issues with you wanting to be a friendly neighbor, we actually encourage it. Half the fun of staying at a campground is comparing traveling notes and stories with your fellow campers. It builds a great sense of community and can generate amazing ideas of fun activities to try out. That being said, please be respectable with your chattiness. The biggest no-no we can think of besides talking loudly during quiet hours (see below) is chatting up your fellow campers while they’re trying to get setup in their spot. Most people want to get everything situated and ready before socializing, so it’s probably best if you hold off before introducing yourself. It’ll probably lead to better conversations in the long run as well.
Be Aware of Quiet Hours
Think of this scenario: you’ve had a long day of hiking, rafting, or Yellowstone-ing. You’re all tuckered out and ready to rest in preparation for the following day’s adventures. All of a sudden, you’re awakened by some hootin’ young adults with a guitar. We’ve all been there, and it’s not a good time. That’s why all campgrounds have their own quiet hours that have to be followed. Don’t be the hootin’ young adults, and if it’s past quiet hours, for god’s sake, don’t start playing the guitar.
Leash Your Pets (and Your Kids if Need Be)
If you’re staying at a pet-friendly campground (like ours, for example), please keep an eye on your pets. While we are dog lovers here, everyone camping around you may not feel the same way. Whether it’s from negative experiences or simply just not being a dog person, some people may not want to meet your dog, and may cause a bit of a ruckus if there’s an unexpected pooch suddenly at their front door. So if you aren’t watching your dog, please put them on a leash so they can’t explore other campsites with ease. As awkward as it is to say, please keep an eye on your kids as well. Curious children tend to be a lot better at getting into closed spaces than dogs, and we’ve seen plenty of curious kids break into coolers for s’mores materials and other sweet treats. We aren’t saying you need to leash your children, but if that’s what you need to do, we won’t judge you.
Try to Avoid Overflow
As we mentioned above, everyone’s campsite is their own personal space for their stay at a campground. So, generally speaking, people don’t like it when someone else’s RV is overflowing into their site. Given that we don’t want anyone to feel unhappy and, in the most extreme cases, we don’t want a fight to break out between campers, keeping your RV confined to its own space is the best way to make sure everyone is happy.
That being said, not every campsite has obvious borders where one site ends and the other begins (most of ours have hedges for example), so be communicative and cooperative with your neighbors to make sure you aren’t invading their space.
Make Sure to Clean Up When You’re Done
Once you’re all done with your space and it’s time to move on to your next adventure, make sure you’ve cleaned up before leaving. Whether it’s cleaning up after your dogs, picking up all the random things that may have fallen on the ground, or just doing a last-minute sweep to make sure you didn’t forget anything important, cleaning up your spot will make the next person’s experience a lot better and will make life easier on the campground employees. Think about it. You wouldn’t want to pull up to an RV site that has all the previous owner’s food wrappers and pet droppings. So why would you put that on someone else?