Best Winter RV parks in Arizona

beetle1 wrote:
Thinking about spending the winter in Arizona and would like opinions and best choices of parking spots??We are new to long term travel!!

Your facing the same problems did when we spent our first winter in the southwest. Sorry to throw cold water on Yuma, but we don't think much of it and we will have some friends here on the forums that winter there. Yes, Yuma is 3-5 degrees warmer than other areas of Arizona. However, once you have visited the Old Territorial Prison, Old Army Depot, gone through the swap meet and visited Algadonnes, there's not a lot more to do, unless your really into 4 wheeling in the desert. Yes, LOTS of RV parks to chose from and many of them have a limited amount of activities to get involved with. There is a lot of airplane noise from the base there, but that may not bother you. More dust, since it is in the middle of agricultural areas.

BLM lands all over there. Imperial Dam and Quartzsite just to get started. If you don't mind and like dry camping, great alternative that we enjoyed. Yearly fee is $140 now I think and that gives you access to dump stations and fresh water in the LTVA there.

Valley of the Sun - Phoenix area. LOTS of great RV parks with lots more activities and amenities to offer, as well as much more to do in the valley. That's not even including spring training if your into baseball. Any of the CanAm resorts are excellent and first rate. They have 5 or 6 in east valley and at least one in west valley between Sun City and Surprise. Generally a few degrees cooler over all than Yuma, but not the dust.

Tucson - a few degrees cooler than the other two. Closer to the mountains. Also, a lot of great RV parks with activities.

Our first 2 winters down there, we moved around about every 3-4 weeks with no reservations for any specific park. We had no problem getting into anyplace. We also spent about 30-40% of our time on BLM land as well. I wouldn't hesitate from doing it the same way again.

We made Sun City as our winter base now and love it!!

Good luck and enjoy the sunshine and warmer winter weather!

In the Phoenix area the best parks are Maricopa County Parks; Usery Mountain, McDowell Mountain, etc.
www.maricopa.gov/parks/usery/Camping.aspx
is a good place to start, and if you don't like those try www.rvparkreviews.com

For the best weather Yuma is the safest bet. For recommendations, try RV Park Reviews and you can see what real people think of the parks. We use it all the time.

We will want hook ups and maybe within a few miles of a town for shopping, movies, etc. I have found a site on the internet for viewing pictures of subscribed parks, but would like to hear about your experiences. Monthly rate will work if location has things to offer.

Define `best'.

We've stayed in Yuma where there are over 100 RV parks, and they range from modest to very nice. The cost of living is modest to reasonable and lower than just about any other snowbird destination. Yuma has the warmest weather in the US in the winter, and is adjacent to Los Alcodones, a tourist town in Mexico. Many of the winter visitors have dental work done and buy their medications there. It is perfectly safe.

Several friends were snowbirds but now live year around in Phoenix, which is higher up. It also has a smaller Hispanic population so labor prices are slightly higher than Yuma.

Finally, if RV fees are an issue, then parking out in the desert (as Emptypockets pointed out) is very inexpensive and very popular. The area around Quartzsite, the BIGGEST swap meet you'll ever, ever see, is very popular. And, you can spend every day for a month visiting the vendors. January is the most popular month. I could tell you how many RV's you'd see out parked in the desert around Quartzsite, but you wouldn't believe me. In fact, you wouldn't believe there are that many RV's in the whole country.

beetle1 wrote:
Thinking about spending the winter in Arizona and would like opinions and best choices of parking spots??We are new to long term travel!!

There are so many choices (from free parking on BLM land to high $ resorts) it would be hard to recommend without know what you require.
I could only help you on the cheap ones though.