Exploring the Texas Coast: Galveston Island

First stop along the coast: Galveston Island

For our first week long stay on the Texas coastline, we were at the Galveston Island RV Resort (now the Galveston Island KOA), about 20 minutes south of Galveston.  This is a pretty standard RV resort, well-maintained and expanding.  There were a few other parks in the area, with one just south of Galveston right on the beach, however the reviews were not so hot.  Several more about 10 miles south of Galveston on both sides of the road, however this was considered a private park, where each site is actually owned and apparently you have to be a native Texan.

When we arrived on a Thursday afternoon, the park was about half full, with a few more rigs showing up by Friday.  Most of the RVs were fifth wheels or Class A rigs, so we were definitely one of the smaller RVs in the park. 

Site 31 at Galveston Island RV Resort

Here is our evaluation of this park and location:

• Weather: Temps during our stay were 60-65 during the day, and about 55 at night.  The wind was pretty much a constant 13-15 mph. Based on the historical temps, we experienced lower than average temps during our stay.  We gave the Weather here a 6/10 based on the historical weather (I would give it a 4/10 for the week we were there!)
• Activities:  About a 7 minute walk to the beach, where you could enjoy miles of walking in either direction.  Biking is decent on the beach if you stay on the firm sand.  Not many hiking trails nearby.  We gave Activities a 4/10.
• Cost: The monthly rate was $599, which puts you at $20/day. This gets a score of 9/10.  As I mentioned above, this is now a KOA, and the monthly rate unfortunately will be much higher.
• Environment:  The park is across the street from large, clean beaches.  Because of the wind, the beach here is not really a place to relax.  We gave it 6/10 for Environment.
• VIBE:  While the park was nice, well maintained and hosts very friendly, due to the pandemic there were no scheduled activities.  We did see people out walking, but it was a very small percentage of guests.  Many people had chairs set up outside as if they would socialize, but we just didn't see it.  Again, not the greatest weather the week we were there, but we just didn't feel the 'vibe'.  But they did have frozen margaritas you could purchase at the club house, which we took advantage of.  Vibe for Galveston Island RV Resort is a 3/10.
• Site: Sites here are large, definitely set up to host larger units, with level, cement pads.  Each site also had a picnic table and a grill.  However there is no real view from any of the current sites, but the new section has some sites overlooking a marsh.  The site gets a 4/10.
• Food Basics:   Closest store is about 5 miles away, nice robust grocery store however somewhat expensive.  Walmart 18 miles away in Galveston.  This results in a score of 6/10.
• Culture:  There were two breweries and a brew pub in Galveston, about 18 miles away.  Check out our review of Galveston Island Brewing and The Devil and the Deep Brewery.  A few dive bars within 5-10 miles.  Not much for restaurants nearby - which was surprising based on the number of RV parks alone.  We did enjoy a nice dinner at West End Marina (upstairs).  The area must be a zoo during spring break to try to go out to eat.  Culture gets 6/10.
• View: Beach across street, with a row of large vacation homes in-between.   We did have an open field behind our site.  Too foggy most nights to see a sunset.  Looks like some of the new sites will have view of a marsh, which would be more interesting.  View gets 5/10.
• Noise: There was some road noise during day, don't even hear it at night and our site was close to the road.  Wave and ocean noise depending on wind, which also reduces at night.  Noise for us rated 5/10.

With all of that said, our overall score for Galveston Island RV Resort based on our long stay criteria is 55/100.  Eventually we'll show you all four of the places we stayed on the Texas coast and how they stacked up against each other.

Here are some of the images we captured during our stay:

Here is a video Tim made of Galveston Island RV Resort.

Overall, we enjoyed the stay - it was our first time staying a week anywhere.  We tried to establish a routine of exercising early whether a walk or bike ride, RV/household tasks such as laundry, shopping and then dinner/clean up each day.   I think I would stay in the area again, but probably later in the winter months vs. January/Feb.  We'd also try something a bit closer to Galveston.

Next up - Exploring the Texas Coast: Matagorda Bay.

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Have you been to the Galveston area?  Have you ever gone during spring break?  Leave your comments below!  Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by following us.