ARE THERE ANY SNOWBIRDS ANYMORE?

Cptnvideo wrote:

It is estimated the the snowbird population around the Quartzsite area alone is in the 500,000 range. Mesa's population swells in the winter, causing waiting lines at restaurants to go out the door

....Interesting. I wonder how many of the ~500,000 Quartzsite "snowbirds" (guestimate: almost all are boondockers) actually stay in Arizona, all year 'round (ie. they migrate from Quartzsite to BLM land in the high country when Quartzsite gets too hot) ?

I think (don't quote me) that Arizona has the 9th fastest growing population in the US (Florida is ranked 5th fastest growing)

We are "snowbirding" in an ocean front condo (Butler Beach, near St Augustine), however, after the condo, we have a park model rented in March that is water-front on the intercoastal. Too expensive to haul an RV down here from Canada....at this juncture.

Water shortages will continue to get worse as long as politics allows it. As will electric blackouts as long as we continue to allow more consumption, such as electric vehicles, without any more energy production. When is the last time a power plant was built? Snow birds are only a drop in the bucket.

Before you buy in Mexico you might want to follow this for a while

http://www.borderlandbeat.com

CBBeggs wrote:
My wife and I are getting ready to retire (about 5 more years) and looking at purchasing a condo in Mexico for spending our winter months and back in US for summer RV'ing.
Is there anyone doing this who could give some advice to help us prepare or have any advice before making this decision?

Thanks

Welcome to the forum.

Happy camping.

CBBeggs wrote:
My wife and I are getting ready to retire (about 5 more years) and looking at purchasing a condo in Mexico for spending our winter months and back in US for summer RV'ing.
Is there anyone doing this who could give some advice to help us prepare or have any advice before making this decision?

Thanks

No matter what, I would definitely rent for the first few winters.

My wife and I are getting ready to retire (about 5 more years) and looking at purchasing a condo in Mexico for spending our winter months and back in US for summer RV'ing.
Is there anyone doing this who could give some advice to help us prepare or have any advice before making this decision?

Thanks

“Birds” fly north too. Escaping from something during June July and August. Catching Kanadian fish. Making their way to Alaska. Banff, Jasper we see lots of American plates.

Cptnvideo wrote:
OkieGene, Arizona only has so much water available and all the snowbirds really out a strain on the resource.
It is estimated the the snowbird population around the Quartzsite area alone is in the 500,000 range. Mesa's population swells in the winter, causing waiting lines at restaurants to go out the door (summers, it's walk in and have a seat). So the year round population gets a little tired of the birds.
"So many snowbirds, so little room in the freezer." is heard often among the year round population.

Yes absolutely water is a huge issue.

I've been following the story of the town (not really a town but a very nice home area) by the name of Rio Verde Foothills, a suburb of Scottsdale AZ. Rio Verde has NO water supply. The residents have been paying water trucks to bring water in from a supply in Scottsdale. Scottsdale kept warning Rio Verde to get their own water supply because Scottsdale residents come first. Huge homes continue to be built, there's NO water for them. A few weeks ago Scottsdale made true on their warning to cut off the water supply. Trucks now have to drive an hour or 2 away to get water to haul back to Rio Verde. In an interview I saw, one resident was using 24,000 gallons per month!!! That's crazy. Wasteful.

And west of Phoenix, not too far from Buckeye, the Hughes Corp spent something like 600 MILLION DOLLARS to buy a 37 THOUSAND ACRES to build 100,000 new houses.

THERE ISN'T ENOUGH WATER TO GO AROUND!!!! Yet we see more developments, more golf courses etc etc etc.

You can google those 2 stories I mentioned to see how sad and pathetic it is, and how builders just want to make their $$$ building with no regard to water going forward.

OkieGene, Arizona only has so much water available and all the snowbirds really out a strain on the resource.
It is estimated the the snowbird population around the Quartzsite area alone is in the 500,000 range. Mesa's population swells in the winter, causing waiting lines at restaurants to go out the door (summers, it's walk in and have a seat). So the year round population gets a little tired of the birds.
"So many snowbirds, so little room in the freezer." is heard often among the year round population.

As a fulltimer I usually head south with the snowbirds. This winter I am snowbirding in place in Delaware due to family medical issues.