Best Winter RV parks in Arizona

[beetle1]

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

[missourijan]

We stayed at Voyager Rv Resort(Tucson) Jan-Mar this year and liked it because they have a lot of activities and the people were very friendly. In some places we've stayed the park model people were not friendly to the rv people. We like to stay somewhere that has a separate rv area, not mixed in with the park models, it's just too hard to park. Voyager has all, park models by themselves, park models & rv's mixed, and a separate rv only area. We met a lot of people last year and everyone on our row is coming back.

[crabbin_cabin]

"Any of the CanAm resorts are excellent and first rate"

Probably a misspelling - try www.cal-am.com for larger active parks in Phoenix/Mesa area.

[Lauren]

"RVparkreviews.com is a great place to narrow down your choices. Then come to this forum for more information to make a final choice. In all the years we've been a member of this forum, we've never been led astray."

I agree about 98% (nothing is 100% with me!) with that statement from Thunder Mountain. There have been a couple of times info was sketchy at best so took a chance and was burned. Different people tend to look at things a little differently or priorities are different. And depends if an overnight or a week or so. Our standards drop for an overnight when in the middle of the boondocks.

But your question is AZ. Let us know your needs / interests and we are (mostly) all willing to help you. Do you want a big city with it's advantages and disadvantages (Phoenix is the 5th or 6th largest city in the U S)? Do you want a nice private rv park with full hookups and amenities or boondock in the wild (kinda doubt that if you are new to long term travel - but not sure).

Help us help you so to speak.

[Thunder_Mountai]

soricobob wrote:
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

x2 We always land at McDowell first for about 10 days. Besides loving the place, if you are delayed by weather, you can get a refund. Some of the big, fancy places we stay at don't give refunds for short notice cancelations.

We just made our reservations for McDowell in January. While we did get our first choice, we were surprised how many of the sites were already reserved. Drove up to Usery last year to check it out. Absolutely beautiful, except there were too many cactus for our cactus stupid dogs.

RVparkreviews.com is a great place to narrow down your choices. Then come to this forum for more information to make a final choice. In all the years we've been a member of this forum, we've never been led astray.

[Lauren]

Closed own? Not at all. We spent a week at Butterfield thee this summer. But i is a little higher elevation and a little cooler.

[rockportrocket]

Has Benson closed down? That was the prevalent place to be . Look at Cochise village there.

[2gypsies1]

For your first time we would recommend you not make reservations for one park for the whole season. Move around and test out different areas. What someone else likes may not be what you'll like. The popular cities for the winter are Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, Parker, Havasu City. Don't go above Phoenix as it will be very cold. You'll find 'resorts', plain RV parks, state parks, Phoenix and Tucson have some nice county parks, and Yuma/Colorado River areas have lots of boondocking spots. Good luck!

[Lauren]

We live near Tucson and would recommend LazyDays or Rincon West here. We also jump over to Yuma and The Palms is a fantastic place. All are FHU nice places.

[beetle1]

This info gives us a starting point..Thanks

[pjsky]

We will be going to Cocopah RV and Golf Restort in Yuma for the ninth straight year. It is a GREAT place to winter even if you don't golf.

Paul

[Ron_Butler]

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!

[soricobob]

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

[luvglass]

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.

[beetle1]

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.