Looking for campsite in southwest usa

Try Lake Havasu.

If you dont want Texas, How about Arkansas, land only is available in small communities near, or sometimes on lakes.
An example Lot

I have no idea what restrictions may exist on this, but in Virginia, where I live, a lot of folks buy a lot in a lakeside community, put in well and septic, and then just use a camper on the site.
I know this is common in Texas, and Ok as well.
Its all a matter of deed restrictions and local guvmints with overactive hormones, find a realistic one, and they can be golden for something like you mentioned.

For Texas, you have to get north of I-10, I believe. Which means you will have a couple spells of freezing weather each winter.

Despite my rant on another part of the forum, most years, the cold spells are short and mild.

In Arkansas, like Texas, most of the better lakes are COE, and very difficult to impossible to get long term lakeside spots. You have to find non-COE lakes.

A couple possibilities -
Hot Springs Arkansas - Lake Catherine - Catherine's Landing: Lake Hamilton RV Resort; Treasure Isle RV Resort; Leisure Landing RV

Texas north of Houston
Lake Livingston - Lake Livingston/ Onalaska KOA; Wolf Creek Park; Longhorn Valley RV
Lake Conroe - Sunset Shores; Park on the Lake; Thousand Trails Lake Conroe - which does have seasonal sites which may not require a TT membership, or might

Lake Texana - near Edna - Texana Park and CG; Brackenridge Park and RV

Lake Calaveras - near San Antonio - Calaveras Lake Park

Medina Lake - west of San Antonio - Medina Lake RV Resort (Not the Thousand Trails Park) - Medina Lake is frequently extremely low. A water front site and be a couple hundred yards from water, or 20 yards from water.

Part of the Colorado River lakes between Llano and Austin

Lake Buchanan - Big Chief RV Resort, Burnett, TX
Lake LBJ - Heart of Texas Lake Resort, Burnett, TX; Rio Vista Resort & RV Park, Kingsland, TX; Bullfrog Cove at Twin Isles RV Park, Kingsland, TX; Sunset Point on Lake LBJ, Marble Falls, TX;

WARNING - I have not stayed at almost all of these parks. Some I have seen and they looked good. I picked these off of the higher rated parks on those lakes from RV Trip Wizard.

This just to give you and idea of where to look and do research. I have no idea about rates, or availability of long range storage on site or in the park.

Also, as mentioned by 2oldman above - look at the Lake Havasu area of Arizona/ Southern California. We drove through the area from Las Vegas to Blythe, CA back in late 2016 and it looked very interesting. From campgrounds in Bullhead City all the way down to Blythe.

define southwest. why not texas. Tx. n.m. az. ca. lakes are all man made, access to them and on rivers is very complicated. kind of like here in s.d., man made lakes and all rhe shoreline is owned by the state, first nations or coe. only the first nations allow development $$$$. look at Parker Strip Az. on the co. river.
Waterfront in the desert sw is as songs and myth. oceanfront property?

Lake Powell in AZ/Utah
Elephant Butte in NM
Caballo in NM
Navajo Lake in NM/CO

2oldman wrote:
Try Lake Havasu.

This would Be my First thought - BUT - Crowded and not very RV - wild.

Usually warm so only really Great in the Shoulder seasons.

JMHO,

Pleasant Harbor Marina and RV Resort just north of Phoenix has what you are looking for but it is expensive and reservations may be hard to get. You don't want to stay in the overflow section, it is all sand and dust when the wind blows. Main sites are paved and separated by fence.

RevCindy wrote:
We are planning our retirement and would like to camp from May to October in Maine (where we currently have a seasonal site) and then October to April somewhere in the southwest (excluding Texas). Ideally, we would pay for a year in the southwest so that we wouldn't have to take our camper off the site every year. Also, we want the campground to be on a body of freshwater and has docks on-site. In all my searching, I can't find anything like this. Wondering if it just doesn't exist in the southwest like it does on the east coast?

We've never travelled to the southwest so I'm hoping the collective wisdom here might have some ideas.

https://www.yumalakesrvresort.com/

https://riversedgervresort.com/

Either of these work for you,

Great area,

We like Fortuna de Oro CG in Yuma in the winter. There are many other places in Yuma. Betsy.