How to RV’ing for Beginners

It’s 2019 and booking travel accommodations has never been easier. And since the rise of AirBnB and HomeAway (or VRBO), the number of options are dizzying! While this is all good news for us jet-setters looking for a bargain, I’d like to present an alternative that should be considered when booking travel. Living in the United States, you are bound to see these humongous RV’s and camper vans cruising about the highways on their way to some far-off National Park. But as someone who enjoys occasional pampering and the sound the keycard makes when you gently tap it on the RFID reader to open your swanky hotel room, I’d always thought the RV life a bit drab. So when planning our holiday in New Zealand and Australia, Kirsty and I decided to take a chance and rent one of these bad boys – and boy are we glad we did! I wanted to share our experience RV’ing along with our Top Road Trip picks for Australia and New Zealand.

The Perks of RV’ing 🗺

Now its not always a good idea to travel around in an RV but there are places where this is a very good option. Particularly when you know you’ll be moving around a lot and need to travel overland. Here are some of the benefits:

• Your hotel, has wheels! So you get a rental car and a place to sleep all in one!
• Larger RV’s typically have a bathroom and shower, so no more holding it until the next Rest Stop!
• RV’s have fridges, so you can save on food by buying groceries and having a place to store them.
• New Zealand and Australia have very RV friendly camping laws, which allow you to ‘Freedom Camp’

The RV experience may be different if you are planning trips to other places, so let’s agree that this article is only valid for New Zealand and Australia. The Freedom Camping laws mentioned above are particularly appealing because they imply that you have the right, to camp overnight in most Public places. This is true so long as there is no sign posted otherwise and your vehicle is rated to store its own rubbish and waste water (more in this later).

Fasten your seatbelt 🚎

Coming from the US, driving in the lands down under is a bit of an adjustment. For starters, they drive on the left side of the road. This definitely takes some getting used to, especially if you don’t feel comfortable driving a larger vehicle, like an RV. We had never driven an RV and spent our entire driving lives on the right side of the road but found the adjustment manageable. We found Australia to be a bit easier as the roads are wider, flatter, and much more straight.

Driving License & Permit

Before our departure, we were advised that we should get an International Drivers’ Permit. This is a little booklet which can be issued at your local AAA office for less than $20. It essentially translates your English US drivers license into a dozen different languages and with it, you are given the right to drive in most other countries.

How to find the right RV for hire

This is a fairly nuanced topic and depends on several factors you should decide before booking:

• How many people in your party
• How much time do you plan to spend at campgrounds vs. freedom camping
• How important is having a bathroom/shower
• Your budget

I would break RV’s down into 2 basic categories, those with bathroom/shower/stove, and those without. There are also traditional campers, which need to be towed, but this class of RV is not covered in this article. The RV’s without a shower or bathroom are ideal if you plan on staying at campgrounds or have your own tent and camping equipment. This is the low maintenance option and is also slightly cheaper. We opted to go with an RV with a shower/bathroom/stove. The main reason for doing so was because we wanted the option to freedom camp on our own a few times, away from all the RV parks.

Once you’ve decided on the type of vehicle and the features that matter, it comes down to bargain hunting for a good deal. If you are looking for recommendations on RV vendors, we used Britz in Australia and Apollo Campers in New Zealand. Both are pretty large and reputable vendors but we found Britz to be a better value.

Whichever vendor you choose, be aware that you’ll be offered extra insurance options once you go to pick up your vehicle. If this is your first time renting an RV – take the insurance! It costs $30-$50 US dollars a day but we found that it is worth the peace of mind. Otherwise, be prepared to be charged around $5000 US for the Standard Liability Deductible. This amount gets refunded 21 days after returning the vehicle, assuming all is kosher.

What to know about maintaining the RV

If you decided to book an RV with a bathroom/shower, you’ll be doing several chore-like activities every couple of days. This includes:

• Changing the toilet cassette
• Disposing of grey water
• Refilling your freshwater

I’ll cover each one briefly so you know what to expect. You will definitely have questions after reading this but not to worry – all this will be explained to you when you pick up your vehicle.

Cleaning the Toilet Cassette 🚽

This is undoubtably the grimiest part of the RV experience. The bathroom in the RV works by storing your toilet activity fluids in a container that will hold 10 gallons of volume. Expect to change the toilette cassette every 2-3 days. The disposal process is pretty simple and relatively clean, and can be performed at any Dump Station. Here are the steps:

1. Unlatch the toilet cassette and bring it over to the dump station point
2. While holding the toilet cassette above the drain, turn the output tubing and twist the cap off
3. Dump all the contents into the drain
4. Use the Dump Station Hose to thoroughly rinse the toilet cassette
5. Insert it back into the RV until it latches and clicks.

When you are done, MAKE SURE YOU TEST that the cassette is properly inserted. You can do this by opening the flush latch from inside the bathroom. If the hole does not open properly, then you need to re-insert the cassette. The final step to the toilet cassette cleaning process is to drop a new [bathroom fresh-smelly product] into the toilet to make sure that things don’t smell for a couple days.

Draining the Grey Water 🚿

Grey water is the water that accumulates when you use the sink, or when you run the shower. The water comes from your freshwater supply tank and is stored in a separate, grey water tank after it is used. The process of draining the grey water is not as unsavory as the toilet cassette but is arguably the most challenging. Here are the basic steps:

1. Attach the grey water hose to the grey water output pipe. This will be located on the underside of the RV.
2. Direct the open end of the grey water hose into the drain at the Dump Station.
3. Open the grey water valve.

Can’t get any simpler, right? This process relies on gravity to route the water from your RV’s grey water tank, through the piping, into the grey water hose, and down the drain. On paper, this all sounds great, but when performing this plumbing spectacle in actuality, you won’t need a Master’s Degree in Fluid Dynamics to come to the realization that there is not enough pressure in the system to properly drain all the grey water through the hose. Assuming your grey water tank is full, or close to full, you can expect the first 80% of your grey water to drain with ease. However the final 20% will require some clever agricultural wizardry.

The main reason for the trouble is that the grey water hose is typically pretty long and windy, think 15 feet long. Whereas the typical height between the grey water output on your RV, to the Dump Station drain, is 2-3 feet. This means that your hose will be wrapped up like a snake, and your grey water will just sit there inside the hose. This happens once you reach the point where there is not enough volume to fill the entire hose. With limited tools at our disposal, we solved this problem by closing the grey water valve, detaching the hose, and sticking an EMPTY bottle of water at the opening. Once you have your water bottle or other container in place underneath the grey water output, you can open the hose again once the container fills up. Wait for the container to fill, close the valve, empty the container in the drain. Repeat as necessary.

Your Rental Contract will require that you return the RV with grey water emptied. They’ll usually offer you the option to return the RV without doing this step, but this might cost you an extra couple hundred bucks. Regardless, if you are on the road more than a few days, you’ll eventually have to perform this ritual if you want to use the shower/sink in your RV.

Refilling the freshwater 🚰💧

This process is the simplest part of the maintenance and also the most enjoyable. All you need to do is find the fresh water supply at your RV park or Public Dump Station, open your freshwater tank and fill the tank until water starts spouting out back at you.

Your RV will come with several sensors that will attempt to inform you of how much freshwater your have remaining, and how much grey water you’ve accumulated. Feel free to ignore these sensors as they are often inaccurate. You’ll know when the freshwater is full when it comes flooding out when you try to fill up. Similarly, you’ll know when your grey water tank is empty when you open the grey water valve and no fluid comes out.

Other Gotcha’s

Although RV’s typically have 2 batteries, one for the motor, and one for the appliances, you would be wise to know that you won’t be able to run many appliances in your RV without being hooked up to a power source. This is where the Caravan Parks come into play.

You’ll find caravan parks or holiday parks all over Australia and New Zealand and you might be wondering why anyone would bother staying there if RV’s have everything you need to survive. Caravan Parks offer several essential features that most people will find appealing. First, most caravan parks will offer Powered Sites. These are parking spots that can supply your RV with much needed electricity to run things like the microwave, the 220V outlets, the AC unit, and the TV. Most Caravan Parks will also offer Laundry Rooms, Kitchens, Bathrooms & Showers, and WiFi. We wanted to freedom camp as much as possible but still found ourselves needing to book a Powered Site at a Holiday Park every couple days to recharge our electronics and use their dump station. It’s not a big deal to get a powered site, and will cost you from $30-$40 depending on where you are in Australia or New Zealand.

RV Resources

Because RV’ing has become a very popular way to vacation in Australia and New Zealand, know that you have a lot of resources to your disposal when you are on the road! First you’ll notice these Information symbols on every major road or highway. These information symbols mean that a tourist info center is nearby. The Info Center’s will have information on where the closest Caravan Parks are, where you can find public restrooms, and any free Dump Stations in your vicinity. They’ll also have the usual Tourist Info and brochures on cool things you can do in the area you are in.

Your other best friend is the CamperMate mobile app. Available for free on iOS and Android, you’ll want to download this before the start of your road trip. The app will show you a map of any nearby bathrooms, gas stations, Caravan Parks, Dump Stations, and other useful info. It is a good idea to have a phone with an International Plan when embarking on a road trip. This is a necessity for things like Google Maps and other apps that can be vital when you are in an unknown place.

Top 3 Places To Road Trip

After 3 weeks of road tripping through New Zealand’s North Island and Australia, here are the place you have to check out if you plan to road trip in the area. This is by no means definitive and only scratches the surface of what’s out there.

3. Coromandel Peninsula, New Zealand

With beaches like Cathedral Cove, Hahei, Gemstone Bay & Hot Water Beach, Coromandel is a beach lovers and photographers dream! Only a 3-4 hours from Auckland, you’d be missing out if you passed up on this.

2. Great Ocean Road, Melbourne – Port Fairy

The Great Ocean Road is well known as one of the most scenic road trips in the world. We visited in mid-March when the weather wasn’t exactly ideal but still found the Great Ocean Road to be unforgettable. The road winds along the Southern Australian coast with views of exposed cliffs and uninhabited beaches that go on and on for dozens of kilometers. And with iconic landmarks such as the 12 Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge, you’ll want to reserve at least 3-4 days in the area to take it all in. There are a few towns you drive past along the way so be sure to stop in at Lorne or Apollo Bay for a nice lunch or catch a sunset.

1. Jurien Bay, Western Australia

Jurien Bay is a little beach town with only a couple restaurants, a grocery store, and miles and miles of white sand beaches with turquoise water. Only 3 hours North of Perth, this place is just far enough away from civilization to get away from it all but still be close enough to connect with others. The best thing about Jurien Bay is the 12km bike path. Park your RV in town and rent a bike. Miles and miles of vacant white sand just waiting to be explored!