Snowbirding 101 for Nevada County Library "Travel Talk" June 18, 2018

Welcome to Snowbird 101

Retirement and owning an RV leads to the greatest freedom and the ability to escape winter weather. Head south for the winter as a "Snowbird," experience fantastic desert scenery, camp on white sand beaches, meet fellow travelers, hear of their adventures of what lies just over the next hill, make new friends.  Experience rejuvenation.

What a great feeling when you realize you are no longer tied to one spot on the globe, forced to accept whatever weather the prevailing winds and atmospheric forces throw at you  You can escape and take your mobile "home" i.e RV with you.  I'm going to assume you already own an RV...if not read on there will be links to learn more about all the options you have in selecting your RV

Hello, we are Rodney and Susan Raub.  We retired in 2011, bought a small travel trailer and have spent the last seven winters escaping from our northern California home (yes, we do get cold winter weather where we live in NC).  We have traveled across much of Arizona and adjacent Mexican border states looking for warm weather, beaches, fresh seafood and friendly fellow Snowbirders.

Oh, and don't let me forget to mention the third member of our snowbirding team, Bart the poodle.  A great traveler for the most part, but he hates the desert.  Too many sharp rocks, too many cholla thorns to step on (hence his desert high top sneakers, which he also hates.)

We presented a Travel Talk slide show to our friends and neighbors at the Nevada County Library back in October, 2017 sharing what we had learned about traveling in Baja Mexico, road conditions, travel permits, destinations and safety concerns (Baja is really very safe in our estimation).  We have since made another trip to Arizona and pressed on further into Sonora Mexico.  What we learned and experienced is the subject of this series of Blog posts and our Travel Talk, June 18, 2018 at the Nevada county main library in Nevada City.

When we retired we owned a small SUV which dictated that we acquire a small, light-weight travel trailer.  We looked for a used fiberglass trailer for a year and could never dial the phone fast enough so we gave up and bought a new Casita from the factory and took delivery in August 2012.  See our Blog post Quest for Casita on this blog for details. (See: Quest for Casita)  The 17 foot Casita weighs about 2800 lbs and can be towed by many small pick-up trucks or SUVs.

After four years of traveling in the 17 foot Casita, we decided we need a little more room, especially for our winter trips when you spend more time indoors.  The interior of the Casita was just a little too cramped.  We discovered the Escape brand of fiberglass trailers, which offered a 21 foot model, just the right combination of light-weight and spacious interior.  We upgraded our tow vehicle to a half-ton pickup truck with a small V-8 engine.

We loved that the Escape had a Queen sized bed that was easy to exit in the middle of the night without climbing over your sleeping partner.  There is so much more storage space than in the smaller Casita and every inch of the trailer was customize-able. 

Susan loved that there is ample counter space for meal preparation, a good sized refrigerator and I love that can make ice in the standalone freezer for happy hour cocktails.  And of course we enjoy hanging out in the dinette, taking in the view from the good sized side and rear windows.  The Escape is fully self-contained with enough solar power intake, storage batteries and DC to AC inverter to power the occasional use of our 120 volt toaster over or blow dryer.  We are delighted with our purchase from Escape Trailer Industries of Chilliwack, British Columbia.  See Escape Factory for information on their 17', 19' and 21' models.

Susan preparing breakfast while I laze in my corner of the dinette imaging what we will do today.

Great Trip Planning Resources

I can recommend these sites.  Scroll to the active links below the photo to access the Resources.

These links will take you to helpful planning tools.
Free Campsites

RV Parky

AllStays

RV Park Reviews

Arizona BLM camp sites

Purchase BLM short/long term camping permits

California BLM campsites

Go RVing -- Industry website

Give Rodney Raub your feedback

 I hope this will help you find a free day or two worth of camping in Quartzsite. 

The lower Colorado River and the Yuma area are loaded with free camping "Long Term Visitor Areas."  A permit good for mid-September to mid-April is available from BLM offices (and on-site at a few LTVAs) for $180.

You can't beat the deal the BLM offers in some of the LTVAs.  Complete compliment of services at less than a dollar/day for full season campers.  The hollow circle in table indicates the service is available from a commercial source nearby.

Snowbird 101: Free Camping

Our Escape trailer has adequate solar panel, battery storage and ac inverter capacity to run all our electrical needs for many days even in the worst of sunlight conditions (almost never experienced in the southwestern desert).  With 30 gallons of fresh water and 28 gallons of grey and black water storage, we can go five to seven days off the grid so lets go find the end of the road, out of the way place where life just happens, unplugged.  To get there, we head down Highway 99 and usually make it to Bakersfield or over Highway 58 at Tehachapi pass the first day.  Given a late start, en route traffic or just short days of winter, we might stop for the night at one of the great Snowbird/boondocker RV parks...   

Walmart...friend to many RVers.   The Walmart on CA 58 west of Bakersfield is RV friendly.  Walmart, often referred to as the best free, $100/night RV park in America (after you factor in the supplies you purchase the next morning) is generally a sure bet for a free night stopover.  Once we get on the road, heading for the Mojave desert we have lots of choices diverting off of CA58 heading east.

Amboy Crater, located 80 miles east of Barstow on a remnant of old Highway 66, has a paved parking pad just off the road to the day use/crater trailhead parking area.  There is room for about 10 RVs, a wonderful place to watch the sunset behind the crater.  And of course it is free.

We used to keep a boat at Lake Mojave, one of the Colorado River reservoirs, back in the 1980s.  We used to pass Amboy Crater on our way to a boating/camping outing.  We would joke that someday we'll have to take a vacation in Amboy; joke being Amboy consisted of a boarded up motel, and gas station, the picture of desolation.  Thirty years later, we finally had our Amboy vacation. 

The three mile round-trip hike to the crater is a good way to start the trip.  Exercise before spending hours driving south.

Anza-Borrego offers a wealth of camping, hiking and boondocking opportunities.  A local real estate developer has committed a sizable portion of his net-worth to beautifying the Borrego Springs area with whimsical metal sculptures: some 130 total depicting dinosaurs, herds of wild horsesand elephants to name a few. 

You can dry camp in many spots around the park.  One popular area for boondocking is along the road from Borrego Springs to Salton City (S22)  near the eastern border of the park.

Any experienced Snowbirder will have have heard about Quartzsite, Arizona.  The town of 3,000 permanent residents swells to a rumored peak of 300,000 snowbirds (some say 3,000,000) in the winder.  Free camping or very inexpensive camping on Federal land is the draw.  Quartzsite is surrounded by five Bureau of Land Management supervised free camping areas and a large "Long Term Visitor Area." 

Dome Rock straddles Dome Rock Road west of Quartzsite, within sight of Interstate 10.  You must be self-contained, there are no services, but you can stake out your piece of heaven and stay for up to 14 days free.  Just bring lots of water and food...grocery shopping in Quartzsite is of the AM/PM mini mart variety. 

Dome Rock is popular for group rendezvous.  We camped next to 25 Safari Trek RVers who converged on Dome Rock from all over the U.S.  An All Fiberglass Trailer Rally is held at DR around the second week of February every year.

About the only rule in a free BLM camping area, besides the usual, carry out your trash, don't dump/spill any liquids leave only foot prints etc is you must stay at least 15 feet away from your neighbor.  Don't expect a lot of privacy and quiet (there are no rules about running a generator).  If you are solar equipped you just have to put up with the noise.

I like to look for ghost towns.  I carry a map book with ghost towns identified as a tool to locate good boondocking sites.  We found this spot in the mountains south west of Safford, AZ on Forest Service land.  The FS permits up to 16 days of free camping in what they refer to as Disbursed camping sites.  Stay 100 feet from any sources of water and use existing sites.  With drought prevalent in much of the West, check for campfire regulations before starting one and always use an existing fire ring.

We had a hundred square miles of territory all to ourselves, if you don't count the cows, soaring hawks, jack rabbits and coyotes.

The rancher that held the grazing rights to the land we were camped on stopped by one morning for a neighborly conversation.  He told us the only remnant of the ghost town we were seeking, Gillespie, was a portion of an adobe wall, all that remained of the local school house.

We enjoyed four days of hiking, seeking old memories and making a few new ones of our own.

Snowbird 101: Nearly Free Camping Options

If  you can't find a free spot in the desert there are many alternatives...

Just north of Yuma, the Imperial Dam Long Term Visitor Area provides wide open spaces (with compete amenities i.e. trash, sewage, toilet and fresh water supply) to make a winter stay comfortable.  All at $180 for the September 15 to April permit season.

There isn't a lot of "charm" to LTVA camping areas but you can't beat the price, less than $1 a day for full season campers.  Just observe the 15 foot rule...don't get closer than 15 feet to your nearest neighbor.

One obvious issue to contend with in the desert is lack of shade.

One bonus of the Imperial Dam LTVA is access to water front camp sites for the entire winter.

You could spend 10X the cost of this Imperial Dam LTVA camp site to have a water front campsite in many other Snowbird sites around the sunbelt.

Just north of the Imperial Dam LTVA is the BLM Squaw Lake Recreation area.  It operates under slightly different rules.  A 14 day permit will cost $40 or you can camp on your senior pass for $7.50/night.  Not a bad deal considering you have access to the Colorado River, hot showers, flush toilets and other typical campground amenities.

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Squaw Lake Campground doesn't have stellar beauty, but considering wonderful winter weather and access to the Colorado River, kayakers and fishermen will find this a great place to spend a few weeks in warm winter weather at very reasonable prices.l

What more could you ask for?  Flush toilets and hot showers for as little as a few dollars a day ( $7.50/night for overnighters with Senior pass or less than $3.00/day if you buy the BLM 14 day pass for $40.)  America!  What a great County! 

As this screen capture from "Free Campsites shows...there are free places to camp all over the Colorado River basin (see green tent symbols).  If your objective is spending the winter enjoying warm weather at little or no cost, you can't go wrong heading for the lower Colorado River basin between Blythe, CA and Yuma, AZ.

I hope these links work, if not, copy them and paste into your browser. 

Snowbird 101: Mexico Border Towns and Medical Toursim

Yuma is right on the way to the best Snowbirding destination or as a entry to Mexico.  The city itself is worth several days exploring for its history, proximity to Mexican medical tourism and just laid-back winter relaxation at any one of more than 45 RV resorts/campgrounds and three major Indian casinos (with free or inexpensive) camping.

Yuma historically was all about the Colorado River.  Before the river was tamed by the string of up-river dams, spring floods deposited rich silt making the Yuma area extremely fertile farmland.  Yuma was also the end of the line for bringing supplies up-river, creating a long running connection with a military supply depot and eventually Army and Marine training bases.

We like to stay at the Riverfront RV park on Water Street.  It is affordable ($26/day full hook ups), backs up to the river, connects to bike trails that run for miles along the river and convenient to trips to the Dentist in Algodones.

Riverfront hosts a mix of short term transients like us and year round Snowbirds.

It's not like having a remote campsite all to yourself...

But then it's not like one of the many "mega" RV Resorts that go on for miles.

So if you need dental work, or eye glasses or to fill RX prescriptions, you've come to the right place.

They say there are over 300 dentists in a five block square area...and lots of other services, reasonably good food, cheap liquor, meds...whatever you need, you can probably find here.

Cross the border the first time and you are hit with a confusing blitz of ads, touts, ropers and some occasionally  funny little kids trying to sell you chicle.

We had the purple pharmacy described to us as the half-finished Walmat...It is one of the first things you see when you enter Algodones.  It has good prices on medicines and next door the purple liquor store has every libation you could want.

Dental prices are very reasonable.  I have had some work done at prices 80% less than my Penn Valley dentist charges and I have no complaints.

Prices are definitely lower in Mexico.  Finding someone you feel comfortable with, can trust is the biggest concern.  I can recommend a couple of dentists if you are in need.

When you are done at the Dentist or the Optometrist, join the crowd getting back across the border.  Be sure to bring your passport or it could be an even longer wait to get home.