5 Safety Tips For Senior RV Campers

This is a paid post.  All opinions are my own.

We have been camping for more than 30 years and things have changed a lot for us since we first started camping.  First of all, we are camping in an RV now instead of a tent and, secondly, we are a lot older!   The RV makes it easier for us to continue camping and makes a huge difference in keeping us safer when we are camping.  No more walking around the campground in the middle of the night looking for the bathroom, a little more protection from wildlife looking for food and a door that locks.

Although, we can still enjoy camping, hiking and everything in-between, there are some things we have to be more cautious about and things we just don't take for granted anymore.  Below is a list of things we think about now that we didn't have to worry about when we were younger.

1)  Never go hiking without a walking stick.  We never had these sticks or poles in the past but about 3 years ago we hiked through the Great Smoky Mountains NP and I finally had to find a branch to walk with as we crossed streams on slippery rocks.  That Christmas, my sister bought us walking sticks.  Walking over certain terrains can be a challenge especially as we are getting older and losing some of our balance.

2)  Always be aware of your surroundings.   We have never felt unsafe in a campground.  We would let the kids wander away from the campsite as long as they let us know where they were going and they left in a group of 3-4 or more.   We always camped with 4-8 families and there was always lots of kids to pal around with.  We still feel safe but we are more cautious.
On our last road trip, we camped in one desolate campground.  There were only two host campsites that were occupied but they were parked way down the road.  One evening we went to take showers and there was a car, with someone inside, parked near the bathrooms and no one in the bathrooms that he might be waiting for.  We decided we would go back to the showers after the car left.  After an hour, it was still there.  We were concerned enough to not take a shower that night but not enough to alert anyone.  We just thought it might be better to be cautious.
At another campground, we had a ditch right in front of our campsite.  It made it difficult to get the RV into the site because of having to maneuver around it.  In the evening, we had to be very aware of the ditch because we couldn't see it well in the dark.

3)  Bring extra lighting.  As we get older, it gets harder to see, especially in the dark.  We do carry flashlights if we are walking around in the dark but sometimes the campgrounds are so dark that we can't see more than a couple of feet in front of us.  After we came back from our road trip where we had the ditch to worry about, I saw the need for better lighting around the trailer.  We have outside lights on our trailer but if we are approaching the RV from the opposite side of the lights, they don't help us much.
Now we have a set of Litom solar landscape lights.  I used them on a quick three day camping trip we just took with friends and they worked perfectly.  I had them out in the sun near my RV during the day and then placed them in front of the RV in the evening.  It was so easy to find our way back to the RV in the dark and it lit up the site enough that we were confident we would not trip on anything in our way.

4)  Make sure to give a trusted friend or family member a copy of your itinerary.  Cell phone service is very spotty in certain areas, or non-existent, so it is not something you can rely on to keep yourself safe.  Leave a detailed itinerary of your travels with someone and check in with them from time to time.  My kids like to follow us on Instagram or Facebook so we will post once a day on social media for them.  If we forget to post one day, they will contact us.

5)  Don't go hiking without water and your first-aid kit.   Pack up a small first-aid kit to throw into your backpack before you go out hiking.  It doesn't have to be a big survival kit that will be cumbersome and then unsafe for you to carry.  I bring a small kit that contains antiseptic wipes and ointment, band-aids of different sizes, ibuprofen and hand sanitizer to use before taking care of a wound.  There was a time when we could just wipe up a cut without worrying too much about it but as we get older our immune system is weakened and we have to be more careful of getting an infection.   And make sure to pack water.  Seniors are at more of a risk of dehydration as our bodies have less water than younger adults.

An RV road trip can be such a wonderful adventure.   We are still young and healthy enough to enjoy the great outdoors.  We just need to know our limitations.  We definitely do not hike on the strenuous trails and keep to the easy and the occasional moderate trails.

As long as we are aware of keeping ourselves a little safer than we did in the past, we will be able to go on these adventures for many years to come!


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