When you’re traveling across the country in your RV, Washington DC makes for a great pit stop. But what if you’re an RV or boat owner who’s actually living in our nation’s capitol? It’s true that Washington DC is busy and often—okay, usually—congested and urban driving (and urban living) doesn’t leave much room for parking a regular sized vehicle let alone a truck pulling a trailer, but we still think you can hang onto your RV or boat thanks to a little thing called self storage. No, you can’t park your RV on the White House lawn and invite the POTUS out for a brewski, but you can park your RV in a place that’ll keep it safe from crime and readily available when you need it. Here’s the lowdown on RV and boat storage in Washington, DC.
It’s Scarce
Look, we like to deliver bad news first, so that’s where we’ll start. Run a search for
RV and boat storage in DC and you’ll see that the options are limited. We spoke with several local facility managers to get their expert opinion and they suggested what most urban storage facility members suggest when it comes to not only RV storage but storage in general. If you’re willing to expand your search outside of the city, you’re going to have a lot more options and you’re going to save money. For example, if you don’t mind the 45 minute drive to Fairfax, Virginia, you can store your RV at the
StorageMart facility there. They offer those highly coveted indoor storage spaces and often run specials like your first month free (print the coupon out from our website) which covers the gas money to get to and from a few times. Another advantage to storing outside of the city is that you’re eliminating the stress of navigating the city’s narrow, traffic-clogged streets with a boat in tow or a 45 foot vehicle.
24 Hour Storage and DC Traffic Nightmares
It’s a fact; there are few things worse than DC traffic. The average resident spends 82 hours annually sitting in it. It stands to reason that you can expect to log in some of that time on gridlocked I-95 when you’re heading to or from vacation. If you’re headed to
Sandy Point State Park, which is one of DC’s closest beaches, you can expect the drive to take you about an hour. However, if prefer to camp or boat near a beach that forces you to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in the summer, you can expect miles of traffic heading in on Fridays and heading out on Sundays (more than 47,000 cars crossed the bridge on a single day in 2007). Add in the traffic you’ll experience heading back into the city itself and your storage facility’s 5 p.m. closing time doesn’t sound so doable anymore. Don’t find out the hard way what happens when you and your RV or boat are locked out with no place to park. Opt for a facility with 24 hour access.
What if Your RV is Your Only Vehicle?
Residents of other cities (we’re looking at you, Los Angeles) might laugh at the mere mention of a fabled person who dares to live their life without a car. But you’re a DC local; you know it can be done. If your only vehicle is an RV, you can access it a storage unit quite easily thanks to DC’s excellent public transportation. It’s the second busiest public transportation system in the nation and it’s known for being clean and efficient. You can take the
Metrorail throughout the city and the
Metrobus to all of those places that the subway doesn’t go. There’s also a citywide
bike sharing program that has 3,000 bikes at 350 stations throughout the metro area. You can also take advantage of ridesharing programs like Uber and Lyft which allow you to split the cost of the ride between multiple passengers. This gets you to your storage facility cheaply and efficiently so that you can get your vacation going faster.
