Newly Retired

[Happy_Nana]

Hello All. My husband and I are recently retired and are looking to spend a couple of months down either in Arizona, Florida or California. We would like to drive down maybe in January without trailer to one of these areas. Looking for advice or recommendations firstly as newbies which state....secondly where can we find a rental for 30 days nearby. Thank you all in advance!

[obgraham]

Happy Nana wrote:
Thanks again for the comments. I am not looking for a condo to go to on a regular basis...only for this particular trip. We have never been down to the southern states and want to have a look at places we might be interested in to take our trailer the year after. Jan/Feb of 2022 is just a search trip....it would be the year after we would take our rv down. Thank you again!

We have friends from The Hat who have been coming here to Arizona for a number of years. They usually rent for a couple months at a time. They can tell you how they find their places.
Send me a PM on this site and I will send you a contact for them.

[silversand]

Happy Nanna wrote:
We hear California is more expensive. Any personal recommendations in Florida or Arizona?

We have done both (condo rental) and RVed (truck camper) in Florida...for about 8 years now. Our "base" is St Augustine Beach/Crescent Beach area. Condos on the ocean side of the A1A are quite reasonable in December and January by the month. St Augustine is a bit north in Florida, but not too far north (like the Panhandle). A good locale to launch expeditionary / exploratory trips by car:

ie. starting in St Augustine, drive the A1A all the way south to say the Jupiter region, visiting campgrounds; then drive across to the West Coast of Florida, and explore that shore's campgrounds up to Hernando/Spring Hill....then explore the Florida interior to Orlando/Sanford area.....and finish up at your condo rental in St Augustine. A nice exploratory loop.

[LynnandCarol]

Should check out Rockport, TX area! We are on Copano Bay and Port Aransas is 20 minutes away! We were snow birds here for 5 years and finally just decided to move here!

[BarbaraOK]

agesilaus wrote:


Besides be extremely expensive CA is choked with rules, laws and regs. I'm not sure if most businesses are open. We avoid the place if possible.

What rules would affect someone spending 3 months in a rental used for snowbirds would cause problems for them? These people will be tourists, and there are no rules that say one can not be a tourist provided you understand that you will need your masks, and need your vaccination cards for a lot of businesses. Wish we could get more businesses to do that in Arizona.

And we spend all of September in California, never had a problem going any place we wanted, but then we always have our masks with us and can show our vaccination cards.

[BarbaraOK]

ferndaleflyer wrote:
One thing you will notice going into CA on I-10, The eastern lanes are clogged with people leaving and the western lanes are nearly empty. I sneaked in at a length of 70ft+ to Pamona and sneaked back out at 55mph. That place is hard to defend with so many people leaving.

There are plenty of condos for short term rent in the South East in the winter especially in the beach areas. Have a good time.

The traffic coming across I-10 right now is full of people who are coming east for a wide variety of reasons because I-10 is open ALL YEAR LONG. And if it is full of trucks coming east the speed limit is 55 mph for 3 axles or more, which includes 18 wheelers, RVs towing cars, or trucks/5th wheels or trailers. Of course only people like us will travel at 58 or so, with most truckers doing 60-63 or so. Some will be going faster, but not all. We spent all of September in California, never couldn't go somewhere, but we did wear masks indoors unless eating, and we can gladly show our vaccination cards.

[philh]

A friend used to drive to FL and walk into real estate offices looking for houses to rent. He had gotten some really nice houses at really good prices. We scheduled our campground for this fall, when we left last spring. Going to key west before thanksgiving for 9 days, and literally got the last spot available. IRC, we booked it in May.

[magicbus]

We had to kill 10 days last March on the way home from FL so we could time our trip through NJ where our breeder is to collect our newest Lab puppy. We decided to check out St Simons Island and easily found a nice place. Nice area but our stay convinced us we wouldn’t want to move there permanently. We used VRBO to find a rental, but my wife owned a real estate firm for 30 years and we knew how to make sure the person we were dealing with was the actual owner. Otherwise I would suggest you deal with a real estate agency.

Dave

[RICK-ards_Red]

Arizona.. we have rented a condo in Scottsdale for March and part of April in the past. If you are looking to rent try VRBO for vacation rentals in all southern states.

[Galvanizd]

hope you find what your looking for.

[jdc1]

There are persons, like my daughter, that Airbnb their rentals to snowbirds just like yourself for a month or longer during the winter months. My daughter does not charge Airbnb rates for those longer term stays. She has found that between travel nurses and snowbirds, she does not have to worry about the same problems a landlord has with regular renters (tearing her home up or skipping out on rent). Her rental is in Kingman Arizona.

[Community Alumni]

ferndaleflyer wrote:
One thing you will notice going into CA on I-10, The eastern lanes are clogged with people leaving and the western lanes are nearly empty. I sneaked in at a length of 70ft+ to Pamona and sneaked back out at 55mph. That place is hard to defend with so many people leaving.

There are plenty of condos for short term rent in the South East in the winter especially in the beach areas. Have a good time.

More gibberish from people who know nothing about California or its traffic patterns.

[ferndaleflyer]

One thing you will notice going into CA on I-10, The eastern lanes are clogged with people leaving and the western lanes are nearly empty. I sneaked in at a length of 70ft+ to Pamona and sneaked back out at 55mph. That place is hard to defend with so many people leaving.

There are plenty of condos for short term rent in the South East in the winter especially in the beach areas. Have a good time.

[Community Alumni]

"Besides be extremely expensive CA is choked with rules, laws and regs. I'm not sure if most businesses are open. We avoid the place if possible."

More stereotyping from people who know nothing about California.

Califronia's snowbird areas are more confined to the desert areas east of Southern California. The Coachella Valley where Palm Springs is located has many condos and second homes that are used primarily during the winter months when the weather is perfect. If you like golfing, there are many golf courses in the area. From the Palm Springs area you can explore all the diverse areas Southern California has to offer.

[BarbaraOK]

In Arizona, especially the Phoenix and Tucson areas, a lot of the RV parks have PARK MODELS (sitting in one as I type) and several of those are available for rent either from the park itself, or from a private person. You could call several of them to get an idea of what is available. We are in a Cal-Am park, there are several in the Phoenix area, and they have a lot for rent. And some of the Park Models for rent are those owned by Canadians who aren't coming south this year.