Winter 24: A Month in Texas

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Southwest 2022: Planning our Next Snowbird Adventure

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Our Second Winter Escaping the Cold

Photo from petercoskunnaturephotography, VisitPhoenix.com

Our retirement plan is to spend time with friends and family at our lake place as much as possible and go to where there are warmer temps in the winter, traveling the country in our RV.  It's nothing new and many thousands of people flock to the south in the winter, whether in an RV or a condo or a second home.  We're just not set on WHERE that is - yet.  We spent last winter exploring the Texas Coast to see if there was a location where we would spend the entire winter.  While we learned a lot about living in a small travel trailer and what living along the Texas coast could could be like, there wasn't anything that we felt like we had to return to long term.

For the of winter 2022, we wanted to explore the Southwest, specifically New Mexico and Arizona. We've been to both states before, but never in an RV and never with the goal of finding a long term place.  We'll use the same set of criteria to evaluate places for long term stays including weather, expenses, and 'stuff to do'.  We'll add in visits with friends and family, State and National Parks, and a few breweries all in search of a place to call home during the coldest winter months.

As with all of our RV trip planning, I used Roadtrippers, Pinterest, and RV Parky, all links are the plans as of the writing of this blog.  We plan on staying in a hotel our first night driving south, and possibly upon our return back to the northland, as temps will be too cold to stay in the RV and use any water.   

Winter 2022 Travel Plan in RV Parky

The first location I wanted to pin down was Quartzsite, AZ (number 8 on the map above).  I had read about the large RV Show held each year and added this to our wish list.  And then of course Nomadland came out, mentioning Quartzsite showing the main character staying on BLM land in the area.  Both Tim and I read the book first, and after watching the film, agreed the book was better.  Finding a place to stay (with hookups!) the week of the RV show was a challenge - my first choice was already booked and this was only JULY.  After reserving a week at Park Place RV Park, I started to work backwards to build out our route to Quartzsite, and then our departure date.  In between central MN and Quartzsite, I added stops in Omaha, central Kansas, then Amarillo, TX.  Getting into New Mexico, I tacked on a few nights in Carlsbad to visit Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Parks, and a few nights in Alamogordo to experience White Sands National Park.  I was pretty happy that our stay near White Sands will coincide with a full moon!  Just prior to our stay in Quartzsite, we'll be visiting with friends in Tucson, and they have graciously offered to stay with them which certainly helps with the overall spend.

After our week in Quartzsite, I started thinking about areas to explore for long term stays and places we've heard about but never even visited.  That's when I added Lake Havasu, Palm Springs, Death Valley and Las Vegas.  Then we will return south to the Phoenix area where it will be warmer. While we have been to Phoenix at least a half dozen times, however never in an RV and never with an eye on long term stays.  I found it very difficult to find anything designated as a 55+ park with openings.  In fact, many require 1+ month stays and many simply have on their website "full until April 2022".  Wow.  We ended up reserving at a regional park, a highly recommended nature park, and then at a park south of Phoenix, in Casa Grand.  Details below.

After finding most places filling up, I ended up reserving all of sites up until the first week of March.  At that point, we'll review the weather forecast, and determine the best timing for making the trip back to Minnesota.  Our initial plan has us going east across New Mexico, then north...we'll be flexible as things could always change!

State and Regional Parks we'll be visiting:

National Parks included in this plan:

Sample images from each - we're excited to see for ourselves!

Parks we'll evaluate for long term stays:
We're cramming a lot into just ten weeks and we're excited to see the sights and learn about spending the winter in the Southwest!

Have you ever wintered in the Southwest? Have you ever stayed longer than a week in one place?  How did you decide?   Leave your comments below!  Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by following us.

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