Beginners

12 posts in How-To Guides

Everything tagged here answers a question we had in our first year, usually the hard way.

What this life actually costs, including the categories nobody warns you about. How to tow and hitch a fifth wheel when you have never towed anything. Where you can legally park overnight and how to ask. How to handle tanks, refill water off-grid, and season a griddle without ruining it.

None of these assume you already know the vocabulary. Where we made a mistake worth avoiding, it is still in the post.

Full-Time RV Living: What It Is Actually Like

Published on Aug 6, 2026

Two people, a 40-foot fifth wheel, two full-time jobs and no fixed address. What a normal week looks like, what it costs, what breaks, and who this life does not work for.

Towing & Setup

Overnighting at Walmart in an RV: How to Actually Do It

Published on Aug 5, 2026

Free overnight parking works until the store says no, the lot is full of sedans, or nobody answers the phone. Here is how we do it with a 40-foot fifth wheel, and when we pay for something else.

What Full-Time RV Life Actually Costs (The Categories Nobody Warns You About)

Published on Aug 4, 2026

Before we went full time we watched every RV budget video we could find and still had no idea what it would cost. Here is what the categories actually look like, including the two that blindsided us.

Towing & Setup

RV Roadside Assistance: What It Covers, and What It Will Not Do

Published on Jul 31, 2026

We called roadside assistance fifteen minutes into a travel day with 21,000 pounds behind us. What we learned is that these plans are built for problems with names, and ours did not have one.

Maintenance & Repairs

What Full-Timers Do Instead of Winterizing an RV

Published on Jul 26, 2026

Winterizing assumes your RV sits empty and unheated all winter. Ours does not, because we drive it somewhere warmer. Here is the full-timer version, including the one job we do not skip.

Towing & Setup

How to Tow a Fifth Wheel: What Truck You Need and How to Actually Do It

Published on Jul 22, 2026

Neither of us had towed anything before we bought a 17,700 pound fifth wheel. Here is what we learned about matching a truck to a trailer, hitching it, and getting down the road, with our real scale numbers.

Towing & Setup

How to Hitch a Fifth Wheel to a Gooseneck Ball

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A fifth wheel on a gooseneck ball keeps your truck bed clear, but the hookup has its own steps. Here is the procedure we should have followed the day we hitched our Brinkley for the first time.

Towing & Setup

How to Stay Hitched Overnight in Your RV (The Level Test)

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A one-night stop only saves time if you can skip the full unhitch-and-level routine. Here is the level check we run before deciding to stay connected to the truck, plus the tolerances that decide it.

Boondocking Skills

How to Refill Your RV Fresh Water Tank While Boondocking

Published on Jul 15, 2026

How we refill our fresh tank off-grid with a water bladder, a truck bed, and a gravity siphon, plus the potable-water handling steps we should have followed from the start.

Water & Tanks

How to Dump RV Tanks With a Portable Tote Tank

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A portable tote lets you stay parked for weeks and haul only the waste to the dump station. Here's the right way to fill, tow, and empty one, plus everything we got wrong trying it the first time.

Camp Cooking

How to Season a Blackstone Griddle (First Cook Included)

Published on Jul 15, 2026

The full first-day routine for a new Blackstone: the one soapy wash it will ever get, three rounds of heat and oil, the first burgers, and the two minute cleanup that keeps the surface slick.

Towing & Setup

How to Weigh Your RV at a CAT Scale

Published on Jul 15, 2026

The full CAT scale process for a truck and fifth wheel: two passes across the platforms, what the ticket numbers mean, and the mistakes we made on our first weigh.