Winter for fulltimers - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Bobc · RV-Dreams Family Member

Winter for fulltimers

Russ Ranger · RV-Dreams Family Member

Don't know if you are looking for a really big change, but here's how we split up our year. For the last five years we have spent 5 or 6 months in Mexico during their beautiful Winter season. They say that the expat community (US & Canadian citizens) numbers over 1,000,000 now.

When weather begins changing in October we begin working our way South. By the end of October or early November the trade winds begin blowing onshore and the next five months are 79,80,or 81 degrees in our city of Mazatlan. Last Winter we experienced one day of rain all season.

Mazatlan has about 25,000 expats that call it home for the Winter. Hundreds of those are RV'ers that come down each year. The style and quality of RV parks varies from basic to very nice. Many people love the tranquility of Stone Island and others like to be in the action of the Golden Zone. Or you could be in our area, Cerritos on the north end of the city in one of the five RV parks in our area.

We enjoy the good food, great entertainment, friendly people and the relaxation we experience each winter. I paint and my wife volunteers at the animal shelter. Winter league baseball is going strong with the Vanados. There are 100's of great restaurants with cheap eats, we've visited many of them. We seem to stay busy in a slow paced kind of way.

The economics of living in Mexico is another plus for us. We find it impossible to spend our monthly retirement income while there. We always come home to the states with our savings replenished for our Spring and Summer RV travels. We've now switched our doctors and dentists to a fine group of Mexican doctors. We always fill our yearly prescriptions for the savings available there.

Most of all it is a wonderful place to enjoy a nice life.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

We tend to stay even longer. After retirement, we spent 20 months in Colorado, 17 months in Oregon, and 9 months in Utah. Currently back in Oklahoma to help our youngest son who is recovering from surgery.

Pros for staying in one place longer:

One gets to see more of what is in that area before moving on.

One DOESN'T spend so much money on fuel to move the rig, however seeing the area sites does use a bit extra.

One gets to know people in the area better.

If one stays as long as we do in each place, one gets to experience each area's changes in seasons.

Now, all that said, when we finally leave Oklahoma this next time, we may "expand" an area for where we are staying. The wife wants to get east of the Mississippi River and I've been told that RV parks that can handle our 38 1/2 foot fifth wheel and two vehicles is pretty limited. We might have to find a place "centrally located," and then take the time to drive into other states rather than just within a 100 mile radius or so.

As for disadvantages, I really don't see that much of a problem. But then, I'm kind of an optimist.

Terry

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Terry, you’ve been misinformed. We’ve got a 40 footer and 2 vehicles and have never had a problem finding plenty of parks with big rig sites in the east. Up in the far northeast it’s a bit more challenging but still pretty easy. The only issue is that you need to make reservations for popular areas...like south FL in the winter or Maine in the fall.

For the OP...we are in Fort Myers for 6 months...same park and site for 7 winters now...and travel the other 6 months. mostly in week-ish stays. It sometimes just overnites if we are relocating a bit...never more than 4 travel days in a row. That gives us some “we are home” time with friends, Elks, favorite drinking spots and the like with some Fun Stuff travel. Started the first year with 4 months in FL and gradually increased to our current 6.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

The first winters, starting in 2003/2004 we stayed one to two weeks at various places November through January as far south as we could get, then we had to move further north in February to places like the Floriida panhandle and Livingston TX. February was booked solid in the far southern spots, but a bit of calling around and using websites, we found one to two week spots all over southern Florida, Texas, Arizona and California before that and in March. Eventually we did one to two month stays and gradually moved to three month stays, but were still unable to do this in southern Florida without a reservation a year in advance. Last winter we scored a place in Fort Myers Florida for three months, because the campsites were new and not yet sold. (Yes, we did meet up with Neil and Connie.) If we had wanted to go back to Fort Myers every winter we would have spent $75K or more to buy our own lot in the campground.

From Florida we drove to Mesa Arizona and bought a park model at the place we like to stay in winter, which solves our winter situation. The motorhome will go into storage for the time we are in Mesa and we will travel the rest of the year.

When Life on Wheels was running, an educational program for RVers, the founder of it, Gaylord Maxwell, recommended visiting multiple places one to two weeks and moving the first winters. We are glad we did that, since we would not have found what we liked if we just listened to others and plopped down where they were each winter. We have friends we like a lot, but their choices of winter spots and ours do not always match. Of course they don't agree with each other, or these friends would not be wintering from the Oregon coast (yes), to Fort Lauderdale.

Bobc · RV-Dreams Family Member

We think we have found a nice place in Williston Florida. Williston Crossing.
Our thought process is we want a new home base for routine doctor appointment, Currently use Mass.our home state. ( will be changing our domicile to Florida).
We will get a break from just sightseeing all the time ( yes this can get old at times).
Planning all the travel can be a pain sometimes.
We think a park with adult day care would be fun and less costly.( lots of activity’s to stay busy we tend to spend more money when we get bored )
This would let us recharge some meet some new friends ( hard to really make new friends when moving every week our so) and look forward to more exploring in the future we think.
Interested in how others feel about this.

Bill and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

Neil and Connie wrote:
Terry, you’ve been misinformed. We’ve got a 40 footer and 2 vehicles and have never had a problem finding plenty of parks with big rig sites in the east. Up in the far northeast it’s a bit more challenging but still pretty easy. The only issue is that you need to make reservations for popular areas...like south FL in the winter or Maine in the fall.
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X2 - We've been in every state east (and west) of the Mississippi - camped there - at 39' we've never had an issue finding a CG. Some State Parks say on websites the length is limited. But when we check the satellite pix and then call the park: "No problem," come on. That's been our finding over the years.
But, as Neil says, in the NE campgrounds do tend (some of them) to be smaller. But, again, we've never had an issue and there is always overflow parking for the second car in a worse case situation. And you do need to make reservations - especially in FL. We make them at least a year in advance and last year at one-year out we just barely got a site in Cedar Key and we're regulars there.

Bill and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bobc wrote:
We think we have found a nice place in Williston Florida. Williston Crossing.

Hey Bob:

Want to check that out and we do plan to visit you guys in Williston when we're in FL this year. Still like the Fort Myers / Tampa and Cedar Key area but as you know we don't stay there for that long. So its a little different for us.

That said, as you know my family was in the full-time game for well over 30 years and, found having that "home base" someplace reaps a lot of advantages as time goes on. Doctors especially, as well has having a "known infrastructure" and everyday life business support system was very important over the long haul.

If one has "problems" knowing where to get help is important and those relationships with Doctors and the like need (IMO) to be developed before they are seriously needed. Our Dr.'s even email. So if we are on-the-road we can contact them and have things taken care of that otherwise wouldn't happen because they have a long relationship with us - I.e. medical history. So reasonable, and legal, accommodations are made and in place when needed. That's just our view and its proven to be true and very beneficial.

Russ Ranger · RV-Dreams Family Member

"We think a park with adult day care would be fun and less costly.( lots of activity’s to stay busy we tend to spend more money when we get bored )"

I had to laugh when I saw this line. One of the beer joints in our neighborhood has a sign in their front window that says: "HUSBAND DAYCARE CENTER". I'm not sure that an RV park will have that feature, but it might increase business.

RonC · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hey Bob ... Ron Craft here ... we met in the Elkhart Campground when you were taking your rig in to MorRYDE for your first alignment. At any rate, what we do is 4 winter months (Nov-Mar) near San Antonio (Castroville) which is where family, Drs, DDS and hair dressers 😜 are. We currently travel 8 months a year with mostly weekly stays, but thinking about longer stays or shorter travel periods. Neil’s 6 month stay and 6 month travel might be a better balance than what we do. Best of luck in your decision and future travels.

jayc · RV-Dreams Family Member

Fir the past several years, we've been hosting at state park in Texas for 3-4 months and then moving to the Rio Grand valley, also in Texas for couple of months. This summer, we had a chance to spend the entire summer (June-October) in Colorado and we have loved it!

kb0zke · RV-Dreams Family Member

We still move around. This year we're hosting in three different Missouri parks in August, September, and October. Then we will more or less follow the Natchez Trace Parkway down to Natchez, then head west to Nacogdoches, TX for the annual service on our coach. After that we'll spend some time at the Escapees Co-op near San Antonio, then head to Hobbs, NM for a couple of months of Habitat For Humanity RV-Care-A-Vanner building.

We'll probably eventually find some sort of winter home base, but for now we're still moving around.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill and Linda wrote:
Neil and Connie wrote:
Terry, you’ve been misinformed. We’ve got a 40 footer and 2 vehicles and have never had a problem finding plenty of parks with big rig sites in the east. Up in the far northeast it’s a bit more challenging but still pretty easy. The only issue is that you need to make reservations for popular areas...like south FL in the winter or Maine in the fall.
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X2 - We've been in every state east (and west) of the Mississippi - camped there - at 39' we've never had an issue finding a CG. Some State Parks say on websites the length is limited. But when we check the satellite pix and then call the park: "No problem," come on. That's been our finding over the years.
But, as Neil says, in the NE campgrounds do tend (some of them) to be smaller. But, again, we've never had an issue and there is always overflow parking for the second car in a worse case situation. And you do need to make reservations - especially in FL. We make them at least a year in advance and last year at one-year out we just barely got a site in Cedar Key and we're regulars there.

Thanks, Guys. I'll have to do more research then.

Terry

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

kb0zke wrote:
We still move around. This year we're hosting in three different Missouri parks in August, September, and October. Then we will more or less follow the Natchez Trace Parkway down to Natchez, then head west to Nacogdoches, TX for the annual service on our coach. After that we'll spend some time at the Escapees Co-op near San Antonio, then head to Hobbs, NM for a couple of months of Habitat For Humanity RV-Care-A-Vanner building.

We'll probably eventually find some sort of winter home base, but for now we're still moving around.

David,

Keep us abreast of what to see and where to stay with regards to the Natchez Trace Parkway. A fellow I know on another forum (not RV related) stated the other day that he would really like to see some pictures taken by me along that way. I'm thinking that I might want to do that in the Fall for the colors. I'm also thinking of finding an RV park in the upper part of Alabama to park the rig while we explored the Parkway in the Expedition.

Terry

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Everyone's style of travel and preferences are different and what works for us might drive others insane, but over the past 5+ years we've primarily stayed West and will continue to do so until we retire due to business and work commitments - note, we're not retired so what works for us isn't the solution for everyone. We also know 8 weeks is about the limit of our ability to stay anywhere, "hitch itch" starts after the 5 or 6 week mark and by 8 weeks we're stir crazy.

What works best for us is about 4 times a year we stop for about 4-6 weeks at a time, usually a month somewhere in AZ around the holidays, the rest of the winter we move every 2 weeks or so but rarely leave AZ / SoCal. All of August in North Idaho and usually the months of May and October in the Sacramento area. The rest of the time we're moving more frequently but the longer stops allow us to regroup, take care of doctor / dentist / vet appointments, etc.

April and September are usually are biggest travel months as we're putting the most miles on the truck exploring as we try to follow the good weather, heading north when AZ gets too to hot and heading south when the rainy season returns to the Pacific NW.

kb0zke · RV-Dreams Family Member

Terry, we saw the TN section when we were there earlier this year, so we're going to do the southern 2/3 this time. We're thinking about a week near Tupelo and then a week near Jackson. The Parkway itself isn't all that RV-friendly, since it is a two-lane road with no shoulders and there are size restrictions. Taking the car is the way to do it. When we did the TN part we were hosting at Henry Horton State Park, about 50 miles south of Nashville. The whole Parkway is 444 miles long, but there are interesting places every few miles.

Rickl · RV-Dreams Family Member

Just a different perspective, tried doing the Natchez Trail a few years back on our motorcycle. After about 30 miles on it doing 45 MPH even the wife said “get me off this thing. It’s boring!” So while some people may enjoy it, it really didn’t do much for us. However I thought it was an exceptional road in terms of road surface and the trees.

PrairieRV · RV-Dreams Family Member

I agree with Rickl about the Nacthez Trace. But the only part I've ever driven on is from Jackson to Tupelo, Miss. and it was in the early 80s. Very nice road bounded by tall trees along both sides. No view, except the walls of trees.