If you spend the winter on the Carolina coast and fly north in spring, the RV needs somewhere to sit for four to six months. Leaving it on the property is usually the most expensive choice available, because coastal ground is the priciest place to park something you are not using.
The Grand Strand fills up in the winter and empties out around April. A good number of those departures leave a motorhome or fifth-wheel behind, and the arrangements are often improvised — a friend’s field, a driveway that technically breaches the covenants, a campground site paid for by the month at in-season rates.
Why not just leave it where it is?
Three reasons, in rising order of expense.
Cost. A campground site rented by the month through the summer is priced as accommodation, not as parking. You are paying for hook-ups, amenities and a location you are not in.
Hurricane season. It runs 1 June to 30 November, which is precisely the window you are away. An unattended RV on the coast during a named storm is a problem you cannot solve from Pennsylvania. We wrote about moving a vehicle inland ahead of a storm, and the version where you are eight hundred miles away is considerably harder.
Salt and sun. Six months of coastal summer is hard on an RV. Chloride in the air works on the chassis and the fasteners; ultraviolet works on the roof membrane, the seals and the tyre sidewalls. None of it is dramatic and all of it accumulates.
What are the options?
- Tow it north. Sensible if you will use it up there. Expensive in fuel and time if it just sits in a different state.
- Leave it at a campground. Convenient, and priced accordingly.
- A friend’s land. Cheap, informal, no security, and a question mark over your insurance position while it sits on someone else’s property.
- An inland storage lot. Off the coastal strip, gated, monitored, and priced as ground rather than as accommodation.
Our outdoor spaces are $75 a month for any length — camper, boat, trailer or motorhome, one price — on a gated lot on Swamp Fox Highway in Tabor City, off the coast. There is no deposit and nothing binding you to a term, so a six-month absence costs what six months costs. If you know you will be back next winter, paying a year in advance takes twenty percent off; there is a separate veterans’ discount on the same terms. Details are on the rates page.
Preparing an RV to sit for six months
Long unattended storage in a hot, humid climate is a different job from parking it for a fortnight. The enemies are moisture, ultraviolet, pests and flat spots.
- Empty and clean everything with water in it. Fresh, grey and black tanks drained and flushed. Standing water in a Carolina summer is how you come back to a smell you cannot remove.
- Take all food out. All of it. Including the tins, the spices and the dry goods you think are sealed.
- Block the entry points. Steel wool or expanding foam in the gaps around plumbing and wiring penetrations. Six unattended months is an invitation.
- Deal with humidity inside. Moisture absorbers in the cabin, cupboard doors and the fridge propped open, soft furnishings raised off surfaces so air can move.
- Inflate the tyres to the sidewall maximum and cover them. Flat spots and UV cracking are the two things a stationary tyre suffers, and covers deal with one of them cheaply.
- Check the roof seams and seals before you go, not when you return. A seal that fails in June leaks until October.
- Batteries out or on a maintainer. A lead-acid battery left discharged in heat will not survive the summer.
- Fuel stabiliser and a full tank in a motorhome, to limit condensation in the tank.
- Photograph it as you leave. Inside and out. It settles any question about condition later.
Common questions
Should I keep insurance on it while it is stored?
Talk to your insurer before reducing anything. Some owners drop to a comprehensive-only storage policy for the months the vehicle is not moving, which can save money — but coverage while parked is exactly what you need in hurricane season, so this is a conversation to have properly rather than a box to untick.
Can somebody check on it while I am away?
The lot is camera-monitored and gated, and the owner is on site most days. We are a storage facility rather than a maintenance service, so we do not run engines or move vehicles — but if something looks wrong with your RV, you will get a phone call. That is the advantage of an owner-operated lot over a chain.
Can I book the space before I arrive next winter?
Availability moves with the season and we do not hold spaces indefinitely, so the practical answer is to call and talk it through. Many people simply keep the space year round — at $75 a month it is often cheaper than the alternative of finding somewhere in a hurry each December. Call (910) 377-2429.
What about the gear inside it?
Anything you would rather not leave inside a sealed vehicle in a Carolina summer — electronics, bedding, tools, anything with a battery — is better in an enclosed unit. Ours are 10 × 10 at $95 a month; here is what fits in one.
The short version
Do not pay resort rates to park something you are not using, and do not leave it on the coast through hurricane season if you can help it. Drain it, clean it out, seal the gaps, cover the tyres, and put it somewhere inland and gated until you come back.
We store campers, motorhomes, boats and trailers on an open, gated lot in Tabor City, with gate access 7:00 am to 7:00 pm seven days a week. Ask what is open.