Short-Term RV Storage: Leaving The RV Behind

Last updated on October 11th, 2023 at 04:01 pm

Sean travels quite a bit for work and I like to accompany him as often as I can. This leaves us with a regular need for short-term RV storage. In this article I’ll share with you some of the options for short-term RV storage, as well as what we have chosen as our preferred method.

Economy Parking

Many airports, cruise terminals and similar transportation hubs provide economy parking. Some even allow RV parking in these locations. Of course, it depends on the size of your RV, and since ours is two pieces (a 44′ fifth wheel and a truck), it is not really an option for us. It works out especially well for folks with vans and small Class C’s. However, using this method would require you to dispose of all your perishable groceries and may not be a great choice for a short trip.

Storage Facilities

The most common place to leave an RV when not in use is a storage facility. We’ve used them for longer term storage when we lived in a traditional home, but don’t feel it is a good fit for our short-term travel needs for two primary reasons. First, as mentioned above if we’re only leaving for a week we don’t want to empty the refrigerator and freezer if there is no power. Second, most of the storage facilities we’ve encountered want a minimum of one month’s rental fee paid.

Peer to Peer Storage

A company called Neighbor, connects land owners willing to allow RV parking at their location to those looking for storage. Simply enter the zip code where you want to store the RV and look at available options.

Leave It At The Campground

Our preferred method is to leave our RV hooked up at our site in whatever campground we’re currently residing. This allows us to keep the refrigerator and freezer stocked. Here’s what I do to know if we’ve lost power while we’re gone: I freeze water in a small plastic container and put a penny on top of the frozen water. If it thaws and refreezes while we’re away, the penny will be in the middle of the bottom of the container. We always turn off the water and propane. Finally, we let the campground management/camp host know what dates we’ll be away and provide contact information. Since we pay the monthly rate to save money on our campground stays, this option is not typically cost-prohibitive.