When leaving camp for day, what to do with stuff?

[Ag&Au]

After 20+ years of travel trailer camping, we have purchased a motorhome.
For the time being at least, we will travel with the motorhome alone. We are used to locking up the trailer, leaving everything hooked up and taking off on day trips in the truck. Now we are not sure what to do in this situation. I am thinking that we will not have the sewer plumbing hooked up untill we need it. The electric cord and surge protector have a locking device that will keep them locked together and locked to the utility post with a heavy duty cable. I intend to just coil up the water hose and exterior filter and leave them attached to the campground spigot. We will be in a state park.

Does this make sense? Any suggestions? What do others in this situation do? Has anyone experienced any theft doing something similar to this?

Thanks,

Ken

[jazzfest]

We travel with just our motorhome, no toad. In all our years of camping, we've never had anything stolen.

When we leave the campground, we unhook the electric cord & surge protector & put it in our storage bin in the motorhome. If it was stolen, it would take some effort to replace it, and we would have no electricity in the meantime.
We leave the water hose and watwr chairs etc we might have, at the campsite. Those would be easily replaced.
We camp in private campgrounds normally. (KOA, Goodsam etc)

[tenbear]

In 16 years of RVing we have never had anything stolen from our campsite. We do have a toad so the MH stays on the site while we are sightseeing.

I don't use a surge protector, but if I had one it would be a hard wired one or I would remove it while away from the CG. I leave the chairs, grill etc out all the time. I try to remember to turn off the water when we leave the site but often forget. I wouldn't leave any beer out either.

Enjoy your camping.

[JamieGeek]

So far we haven't only used the camper--the few times we only took the motorhome we either didn't leave the campground, or we rented a car and left the motorhome at the site.

I've seen people with smaller motorhomes (Roadtrek, etc.) simply unhook everything at the camper and drive off leaving the electric, water, and sewer laying on the ground where they left it (makes returning the camper to the same spot easier as its "marked"). This was in a private campground; not a state park.

[EA37TS]

We leave everything, to include surge protector, connected and leave for the day. We have never had an issue with hoses, grill, chairs surge protector etc... There was one time when we returned to find the water hose disconnected and another where the water had been turned off. Both times it was done by the campground owners. The first was in anticipation of freezing overnight temps so they disconnected everyone and the latter was due to the water hydrant on our site leaking below ground.

[vkb]

If you have a surge protector, there is available, a locking cage which helps prevent the surge protector from being removed from the post.
Theft at campgrounds does not seem to be a problem, but ya never know....
"the times, they are a changin'"

Do what makes you comfortable ! Happy Camping !

[KNMIB]

We leave hose on ground. The plug, cord and surge protector has to be put back in RV storage are since it is hard wired. It takes use about 5 minutes to unhook hose and reel up cord, no big deal and we have had nothing stolen.

[Larry]

We leave everything connected including surge protector unlocked and all campsite accessories wherever they are being used. Never had anything stolen and only had one instance of RV entry - ants - via water hose. Learned lesson on that one. Seven dust around the area for prevention.

[schreinertms]

Thirty years of camping, never anything stolen from our site. Always good to check out campground reviews. If things have a tendency of walking away from campsites, you will probably see that reflected in their reviews.

[blw2]

my electric cord is hardwired, as is my surge device, so they come with us.
As others have mentioned, I would be very reluctant to leave those behind even if i had a choice.

When I do have the water hose hooked up, to date I have always just disconnected it from the spigot and stowed it since that really is no big deal....but I wouldn't be too concerned about leaving it either....

We routinely leave any camp chairs, under awning rugs, door mat, etc.... pretty much just as they are.... in fact I usually take pride in parking back again right in front of the door mat.

i will usually put the cable through the bikes and sometimes lock the bunch to a picnic table or such..... but not always.

[Ag&Au]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I'm on the right track. Since we sold our travel trailer, we have a leftover 30 amp extension cord. It occurred to me that to avoid having to return whatever length of power cord (permanently attach to motorhome), I was using back into its storage compartment every time we left, I would use my 30 amp extension to get to the motorhome. I now only have to extract and replace just enough cable to reach the ground below the storage compartment. The surge protector and extension are locked together and the locking collar is locked to the pedestal with some fairly sturdy cable. So if anyone wishes to steal it they will a least have to do some work.

Ken