One thing I try to be careful about is making sure my car kit remains accessible.

When packing for a trip, be it camping or otherwise, I always take out my car kit, load up the truck and lastly put the kit back in so that its easily accessible. I figure it's silly to have it buried if and when I actually needed it.

This summer I proved this is not the best plan with my current vehicle. I was out camping with the family for a few days and when packing up I followed this same routine. Packed up all the gear making sure the kit was right at the back near the hatch and closed everything up.

Keep in mind that with my family a fully packed cargo area is literally floor to roof & packed tight .

We all hopped in, ready to go, but the truck wouldn't start. Turns out the wonderful new feature of lighting the interior every time the vehicle was accessed drained the battery so I wasn't going anywhere.

My wife & son went over to a neighbouring camp site to ask for help while I went to get my jumper cables.

This is when I found out that my rear hatch can only be accessed when the vehicle has power. My trying to start the engine had drained the last of the juice so the electronic latch would not open.

My kit, jumper cables and all, were effectively inaccessible.

Our neighbouring camper was able to help & had cables of his own so this was really a no harm, no foul type of situation. However I did learn something useful which will help ensure my car kit is kept somewhere where it can be accessed even in the case of a dead battery.