Where to go for the winter if you're in an RV?
That's a question that we have to ask... When your house has wheels and you'd like to able to wear shorts all year the question "where to go for the winter" is real.
I see it as three choices.
Southern Florida has the best weather, that brings lots of people so advance planning is necessary. I'm talking about making reservations 11 months ahead for some of the state parks and many of the commercial RV parks. If you didn't plan a year ahead, you can get lucky if you keep at it, but there are no guarantees.
The Texas Gulf Coast is nice. It's not as expensive as southern Florida and it's less crowded so you can get by with less advance planning. There are a lot of RV parks down by the Gulf but you probably ought to make reservations, as there are more RVers every year it seems. Texas has Whataburger too!
The Southwest... southern New Mexico, southern Arizona, southern Nevada and southern California. Plenty of BLM land that's cheap or free to park on, RV parks all over the place, RVs of all sorts and even Hot Springs!
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| Holtville, CA free Hot Springs, 40 miles west of Yuma. There is a free 14 day BLM area and a long term visitors area (LTVA) there. |
In Quartzsite, Arizona a lot of RVs show up for the month of January. There are the rock/gem shows, a huge flea market & the big RV show, plus all kinds of RVers there for the show & free places to camp. Great sunsets too!
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| Sunset over the Colorado River |
It's not just Quartzsite. Out to New Mexico, down to Yuma, east into California and north up towards Nevada you can find RVers enjoying the "better weather"... better than where home is. Yuma was nice.
I've spent 3 winters in Arizona (one at an RV park) & one on the Texas Gulf Coast (Rockport RV park). This winter we'll be in Florida!
Over those years spent elsewhere, I've looked at the temperature map when it got cold, so I could see where I needed to be in order to be wearing shorts again! It was usually southern Florida.
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| In Florida & hooked up. |
We are in an RV park in Florida and we're plugged in!
It has been a long time since we had full hook-ups (FHU). It's nice to turn on the faucet & not hear the water pump running.
One of those little things.
We have other reasons for Florida besides the better winter weather.
We have some family to visit in the area and I've waited 50 years to "see" the beaches around Sebastian Inlet. I'm going to do it this season!
Around Sebastian Inlet is where Kip Wagner found the lost Spanish Treasure Fleet in the early 1960's. He wrote a book about it, "Pieces of Eight". I read that book in 1968 and never forgot.
Here it is, 50 years later and I'm getting closer!
