Galley Gear

One of the best things about RVing is that you are basically taking your house on the road with you. And that includes all the conveniences of your home, even the kitchen. Granted, an RV galley is usually smaller than a residential kitchen, but that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. You can use a lot of the same appliances and dishes in your RV galley as you would use in the kitchen at your house. There’s no need to go out and restock a whole new kitchen for your RV (though a few specific items will no doubt make your life easier).

We have traveled for more than eight years in our RV full-time, and when we first moved into our RV, we wanted the galley to feel as close to our home kitchen as possible. This means we have continued to use glass plates and bowls since we didn’t want to be eating and drinking off plastic dishes all the time.

Since we also didn’t want to do a lot of packing up when driving to a new location, we bought good-quality glass products that could handle the movement of the RV without the need to use any special dividers or taking any extra precautions to wrap them before traveling.

We also learned that an organized RV kitchen, where everything has its place, is a good way to keep things secure while traveling. If a cabinet only has two glasses or dishes in it, the contents will move all around while traveling. But if the cabinet is filled, there’s nowhere for things to move.

Making our RV kitchen like our home kitchen meant we also brought with us some of our favorite appliances that weren’t a necessity but were things our family wanted to have. This included a doughnut maker, an ice cream maker, and our favorite wine and beer glasses. None of these are RV specific, but they are things our RV family wanted to have with us.

Apart from the glassware and countertop appliances, there are some items we did buy specifically for the RV, so they would fit and be usable in our RV’s kitchen. Baking sheets: We purchased smaller RV-oven-size baking sheets since the RV oven is smaller.

Baking Sheets: We purchased smaller RV-oven-size baking sheets since the RV oven is smaller.

Silverware Organizer: RV drawers are normally smaller when compared to a large kitchen silverware drawer. We measured our RV’s cutlery drawer and found a silverware organizer that would fit.

Kitchen Sink Dish Drainer: The galley sink in our RV is much smaller compared to a house sink, and it took some effort, but we were finally able to find a dish drainer that would fit.

Cutting Board/Strainer Combo: We didn’t have to buy this together, but for space-saving reasons, it made sense to buy a cutting board that went over the sink with a strainer in it.

Beyond these few things, we use the same equipment in our RV’s galley as we would in a residential kitchen. But we did make sure that these additional things were easy to store, heavy-duty, and durable. We keep only one plate and one bowl per person. This means doing dishes between meals, but you don’t really have room in an RV galley to let dishes pile up. And without a dishwasher, we tend to wash dishes between every meal, anyway.

For glasses, we use mason jars since they are very durable. Of course, on moving days, we slowly open each cabinet when we arrive at our destination to make sure things don’t fall out on us. If you are concerned about this, you can pick up some RV cabinet tension rods to add to your cabinets.

Similarly, for your RV refrigerator, it is important that there is a lock on the door so it doesn’t swing open while you are driving.

You can also get RV refrigerator tension rods to put across the shelves to hold things in place. All RV fridges should come with a lock; you’ll need to install one if you have a residential fridge.

Deciding What to Bring

When you are moving into your RV to travel full-time it is important to think through your day and take note of the things you use regularly in your home kitchen.

Don’t think that because you are moving into an RV, you can’t have the kitchen setup that you want. You totally can with a few adjustments and prioritizing.

Here are our favorite RV galley items and appliances:

Coffee Maker: We use a Bialetti Moka Express coffee maker. This serves three purposes. 1) It makes a good, strong coffee. 2) It means we don’t need electricity to make coffee—just propane or a campfire. 3) The Bialetti is aluminum and compact, so we don’t have to worry about it breaking, and it is easy to put in the sink on travel days.

Coffee Cups: We have always used glass or ceramic coffee cups. We tried stainless steel but just didn’t like drinking our coffee out of stainless steel cups. If you get a good-quality glass/ceramic cup and put it away before traveling, it should hold up just fine.

Water Filter: We love taking our Berkey Water Filter with us so we can be sure we are having fresh and clean water. When you travel all over the country, you are going to places that have a variety of different kinds of water. If you aren’t from the area, you won’t know the ins and outs of what you are drinking (or how unsafe it may be), so having a water filter keeps our water safe and tasting good.

Air Fryer: This was a recent purchase for us but one we have been really happy with. Owning an air fryer means we can cook one entrée with it while another is cooking in the oven. It also means we’re able to cook things a lot quicker than we can in a conventional RV oven.

Blender: Smoothies are a big part of our daily routine, so having a blender is a no-brainer for us. If you aren’t someone who uses a blender regularly, this one could easily be skipped.

We are big proponents of making our RV feel like a home. Having the same conveniences in our RV galley that we would have in the kitchen in our sticks-and-bricks house helps make it feel like a home—and not just a trailer.