The Weekend Before Camping Season: Your No-Stress Checklist

4 days ago
6 min read

It's almost time. Don't blow it in the driveway.

You know the feeling.

The weather does that thing — the one where it's not quite warm yet but it's closer — and suddenly you can't stop thinking about it. The campfire. The lake. The morning coffee that tastes better outside than it ever does in your kitchen. The version of your weekend that involves absolutely none of your regular responsibilities.

Camping season is almost here.

And somewhere between that feeling and actually pulling out of the driveway, there is a window — one specific weekend — where you can either set yourself up beautifully or guarantee that your first trip involves a panic stop at a Meijer two hours from home because you forgot something structural.

This is that window. Here's what to do with it.

The Camper

Go inside. Actually go inside.

Not a quick peek through the door or drive by at the yard. Actually walk in, open cabinets, check corners, look at the ceiling, smell the air. You're looking for anything that happened over winter that you don't want to discover at the campsite — water stains, musty smells, a mouse situation that requires immediate attention and an agreement between you and your spouse to never discuss it with guests (finger crossed that is not the case).

If it smells off, air it out now. Leave the windows cracked on a dry day, put fresh DampRid containers inside, and give it a week. Opening your camper for the first time at a campsite on a Friday evening is not the moment to discover winter left you a surprise.

Check every seal you can find.

Roof seams, window edges, slide-out seals, any seam where two materials meet. Look for cracking, lifting, or anything that looks like it separated over the freeze-thaw cycle. A tube of self-leveling sealant costs almost nothing. A water leak you didn't catch costs a lot more than that and a significant amount of your happiness.

If you find something questionable, address it now while you have time. Not at 7 p.m. on a Thursday before a Friday departure.

Run the systems. All of them.

Water pump — does it prime and hold pressure? Water heater — does it light on both gas and electric? Furnace — does it fire up without that concerning delay? Air conditioning — does it actually cool, or does it make the sound but not the temperature?

Run everything for a few minutes with your full attention on it. This is not the exciting part of camping. This is the part that makes the exciting part possible.

Flush and sanitize the fresh water tank.

If your water sat in the tank all winter, it needs to go. Fill the tank, add a fresh water sanitizing solution or a diluted bleach mixture, run it through every faucet, let it sit for a few hours, then flush the whole system completely with clean water.

Do this before you need the water. Not after you've already made coffee with it and it tastes wrong.

Test every propane appliance with the tank connected.

Stove burners, oven if you have one, outdoor grill connection if you use it. Light each one, watch the flame, make sure it's burning cleanly and shutting off completely. Check the propane tank level while you're at it. Running out of propane on day one of a three-day trip is a perfectly avoidable tragedy.

Restock the kitchen kit from scratch.

Take everything out. Throw away anything expired. Check that you actually have: a can opener, dish soap, a sponge that isn't horrifying, paper towels, basic spices, coffee and whatever your coffee situation requires, and at least one thing of ketchup because someone will need ketchup.

Also check your utensil situation honestly. The seventeen-piece silicone set doesn't count. Do you have a spatula that works, tongs, a sharp knife, and a cutting board? Those four things. Make sure you have those four things.

Charge everything that charges.

Battery banks. The cordless fan. Any lights that run on rechargeable batteries. The kids' tablets if they're coming — and if they're coming, the tablets are coming, make peace with it. The backup battery for the smoke detector. Your headlamps. All of them.

Everything that will be dead if you don't charge it now will be dead when you need it. This is a law of nature. Charge everything now.

The Tow Vehicle

Check your hitch setup completely.

Ball mount, ball size, hitch pin, safety chains — go through the whole connection with fresh eyes. Winter has a way of making things corrode, loosen, or disappear into the garage in a way that made sense at the time. Make sure everything is there, everything is tight, and everything is the right size for your trailer.

Do this in the driveway on a Saturday afternoon, not in the campground entrance with a line of cars behind you.

Check your trailer lights.

Plug in the connector, turn on your hazards, and walk around the trailer while someone sits in the driver's seat. Brake lights, turn signals, running lights — all of them. A burned out trailer light is technically a ticket waiting to happen and practically an argument waiting to happen when your spouse notices it at a gas station on the highway.

Two minutes now. Worth it.

Look at the tires. Really look at them.

Inflation first — trailer tires lose pressure over winter, and underinflated tires on a loaded trailer on a hot highway is not a scenario you want to experience firsthand. Check the sidewalls for cracking or dry rot, especially if the tires are more than five years old. Look at the tread. Look for anything that wasn't there last fall.

Tires are the one thing that can turn a great trip into a very bad day on the side of I-75. Take the five minutes.

Top off the fluids in the tow vehicle.

Oil, coolant, windshield washer fluid, brake fluid. If you're due for an oil change anywhere in the next few months, do it now before the season starts rather than scheduling it around a trip. Also: when did you last replace your windshield wipers? Michigan spring means rain. If your wipers are streaking, replace them before they're streaking at highway speed in a downpour with the camper behind you.

The Gear

Pull out the camp chairs and actually open them.

Every single one. Open them, sit in them briefly, close them. You are checking for broken frames, torn fabric, and whether the notorious chair — the one that requires a degree in mechanical engineering to collapse — has finally given up the ghost and needs to be replaced before it takes someone down.

If a chair is broken, throw it away now. Not "I'll deal with it when we get there." Now. The campsite is not a repair shop and the broken chair always ends up being the one that a guest gets.

Dig out the kids' outdoor stuff and check sizes.

Life jackets especially. Kids grow. A life jacket that fit last August may not fit this June, and you will not notice this until you are at the boat ramp. Check every jacket, check the buckles, check the weight ratings, and if anything doesn't fit or doesn't work, replace it now while you have time to do it right.

Same goes for rain gear, rubber boots, and anything else that's size-dependent and safety-adjacent.

Restock the first aid kit.

Open it. Actually open it and look inside. If you haven't restocked it since last season — or since the season before — it currently has two bandages, something that expired in 2022, and a mystery packet of something you can't identify.

Rebuild it: bandages in multiple sizes, antiseptic wipes, antibiotic ointment, ibuprofen and children's ibuprofen, allergy medicine, blister pads, after-bite or hydrocortisone cream, and whatever your family specifically needs. Tape the list to the inside of the lid so next year's restock takes five minutes instead of twenty.

The Bin Check.

Every family has the camping bin. The big plastic tote that holds the miscellaneous stuff — the extra bungee cords, the citronella candles, the playing cards, the bag of S'mores supplies from last September, the flashlight with no batteries, the batteries that don't fit the flashlight.

Go through it. Throw out what's done. Restock what's empty. Consolidate what's scattered. The bin is either your best friend or your most chaotic enemy depending entirely on whether you dealt with it before the season or during it. Don't take last season garbage with you.

The One Thing!

If you do nothing else on this list — if you read this whole thing, nod along, and then close the tab and go watch TV — do this one thing:

Go check on your rig this weekend.

Just go. Walk around it. Look at the tires. Open the door and stick your head in. Remind yourself it's there, it's yours, and in a few weeks you're going to be sitting outside it watching a fire with the people you like best.