How to Level a Travel Trailer (Step by Step for Beginners)

Level side to side first, using blocks under the low-side wheels, while the trailer is still hitched. Chock the wheels. Then unhitch and level front to back with the tongue jack. Then lower the stabilizers. Doing it in that order means you never do any of it twice, and the trailer is never free to move while you are working around it.

This is the practical companion to our leveling and chocks guide. If you have not bought anything yet, start with the leveling blocks roundup instead and come back.

What you will need

Leveling blocks or a curved leveler, a pair of wedge chocks per side, a small spirit level (a phone app works, but a real bubble level on the floor is easier to read from outside), and pads for the stabilizer jacks if your sites are soft.

The gear for this job

Blocks to change the height, chocks so nothing moves, pads so the jacks do not sink. Three cheap things and the job is covered.

Best for Most first trailers

Camco FasTen Leveling Blocks (10-pack)

The default first purchase for a travel trailer: interlocking blocks you stack into a ramp, cheap enough to buy two sets.

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Best for The non-negotiable basics

Camco Heavy-Duty Wheel Chocks (pair)

The chock that stops the trailer rolling. Not the one that stops it rocking, which is a different product, and you need both.

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Best for Stopping jacks sinking

Camco Stabilizing Jack Pads

Four squares of plastic that stop your stabilizer jacks burying themselves in a wet grass site overnight.

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Before you start

Walk the site first. Thirty seconds of looking saves ten minutes of repositioning: find the flattest strip, check where the hookups are so your sewer hose and power cord will reach, and notice which way the ground falls.

It is almost always easier to park the low side of the trailer where the ground is highest rather than trying to lift a lot of height with blocks. Moving the trailer three feet sideways can remove the need for a second layer entirely.

The steps

1. Park, then find out which way it leans

Get the trailer roughly into position. Put a level on the floor inside, across the trailer rather than along it, and see which side is low. Many people stick a small bubble level permanently to the tongue and to the side of the frame, which means you can read it from outside without opening the door.

2. Work out how much lift you need

As a rough guide, one standard block is about an inch of lift, and most sites need one or two. If you find yourself planning a three-high stack, reposition the trailer instead. The full arithmetic, including how to convert a bubble reading into a block count, is in how many leveling blocks you need.

3. Build a ramp, not a step

Lay the blocks so the tire climbs a slope rather than hitting a wall. Interlocking blocks are designed for this: lay the bottom layer longer than the top so there is a stair to drive up. On a tandem axle, build the same ramp under both wheels on the low side, because both tires need to end up supported.

4. Drive up slowly and stop

Pull forward until the tires are fully on the stack. Fully is the important word: no part of the tread hanging over an edge, and certainly no sidewall resting on a block corner. If you have someone with you, have them watch and say stop. If you are alone, get out and look rather than guessing.

5. Check, adjust, repeat

Check the level again. Overshooting is common on the first attempt and it is not a problem — pull back off, take a block out, try again. This is the part a curved leveler is designed to eliminate, and if you find yourself doing it three times a weekend, that is what the upgrade buys you.

6. Chock the wheels, while still hitched

A wedge in front of and behind a tire, on both sides. This happens before you unhitch, because until the chocks are in, the tow vehicle is the only thing holding the trailer. Which chock does what is covered in X-chocks versus wheel chocks.

7. Unhitch, then level front to back

Now disconnect. Raise or lower the tongue jack until the trailer is level along its length. Put a pad or a block under the tongue jack foot before you put weight on it, especially on grass — a tongue jack carries a lot of load on a very small foot.

8. Set the stabilizers last

Lower each stabilizer jack until it takes weight and stop there. They are stabilizers, not jacks: their job is to stop the trailer moving, not to hold it up, and winding them down hard enough to lift a corner puts load into the frame that the frame was not designed for.

What goes wrong

The trailer looks level but the fridge complains. Absorption fridges care more than you do. Check the level on the fridge shelf rather than the floor, and get it closer.

The blocks sink overnight. Soft ground, narrow stack. Lay blocks two wide instead of two high, and put pads under the stabilizer feet. This is the most common overnight complaint we see at the lodge, and it is always footprint rather than block strength.

The stack shifts as the tire rolls on. Either the blocks are not interlocking, or you are driving up too fast, or you built a step rather than a ramp. Usually the last one.

You drive off with the blocks still in place. Everyone does it once. The cure is a fixed departure routine and a bag the blocks live in, so an empty space in the bag is obvious.

Leveling on uneven or soft ground

On a badly sloped site, reposition before you build. A trailer needing three blocks under one side is usually a trailer parked in the wrong part of the pitch.

On soft ground, the answer is always area rather than height. Wide boards or blocks laid side by side under the tire spread the load; a tall narrow stack concentrates it into a small patch and finds the softest thing underneath.

Can you level a trailer without moving it?

Partly. Once the trailer is parked and unhitched, the tongue jack gives you front-to-back adjustment without moving anything. Side to side is different: the only way to raise one side is to get something under that side's tires, and that means rolling the trailer onto it.

Which is precisely why side to side comes first, while the tow vehicle is still attached and moving the trailer three feet is trivial.