Hopefully we will start our FT journey this October. I cant decide where to hang out this winter. I think we will claim Texas as our domicile, but I'm not sure we want to spend the winter there, maybe too cold. After living in the Midwest all my life, I'm looking forward to some warmth now
Anyone want to chime in and help me by giving some suggestions of areas they loved? We will stay in one place anywhere from 1-3 months, wait for the weather to warm up and then head further north for the summer. I feel like a kid in a candy store and can't pick what I want first. I do want to keep expenses in mind in choosing where we stay, maybe in the $500-600
range per month, and it would be super nice to be able to have Internet, not just the wifi. Mark needs to have access to a good dependable high speed internet for work.
I think we will probably fly down to TX sometime before we head out to take care of becoming a resident there in case we don't want to spend the winter around southern TX.
Thanks!!
bjoyce said
08:51 AM Feb 20, 2015
The warm parts of Texas and Arizona are cheaper than the warm parts of Florida and California, where monthly rates can climb over $1000 a month where it is popular, sometimes a lot over. In Texas, Corpus Christi is about the northern range of warm weather, with the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) area of McAllen/Brownsville being the main snowbird area. Up until the last few weeks, it was not a warm winter in Texas anywhere. This has been a cooler and wetter winter in Florida than normal and last night it was 23 here just west of Jacksonville, but Jacksonville is not the warm part of Florida. The warm part of Florida is south of I-4. In Arizona you want low elevations, with Phoenix metro and along the Colorado River (Bullhead City, Quartzsite, Yuma and between) the lowest elevations. But many like Tucson and even Benson in the winter, since most of the time the temps are good. It was an uneven winter in Arizona and southern California, colder in December and January than normal, but really nice this month of February. Southern California the popular area is Palm Springs area, with San Diego second. You can't judge the winter weather by any one year, it varies, just like places up north.
Wired internet access seems to depend on the local offices, some offices are happy to provide monthly service, others a 100 miles away may require 3 to 6 months of service to even get hooked up.
jlb27537 said
10:38 AM Feb 20, 2015
We fulltimed for almost 10 years and have done both Arizona and Texas. I do not like the desert, dirt stuff. We have settled on the RGV as our winter go to place.
Bill is right on the Money....way less money in Texas or Arizona In our park we have free Wifi that is like most parks. Service is somewhere between decent to not so decent. Free cable and you can call Time Warner and get a modem for $20-40 a month if you want faster, more reliable service.
Bill also brought up a good point about altitude in Az. Tucson is about 2,700' while Phoenix is about 900' Makes a huge difference.
We are @ 54' in our park, about 6 miles from the Progresso, Mx. crossing. We love going across for the restaurants, shopping, and just the fun of running into folks we know from other parks. Dentists and medications are available everywhere.
It has been cool this winter and you really need to be way south of San Antonio. My experience of being close to the water is if the wind is off the bay or gulf it will be cold. This morning was 56, and now up to 75. But by Wednesday of next week high will be around 59, so it is up and down....
For our first winter last year, we went to Arizona and LOVED it!! We also hit parts of southern California, but I felt that was too crowded. :)
We stayed at a couple of the Escapees Co-ops and that was really reasonable. We have friends in Maricopa, AZ so we stayed at the Co-op near Casa Grande for a couple weeks. People are friendly, but not my most favorite site, but not too bad a drive to Phoenix or to Tucson. We traveled all around southern AZ for a couple months and felt we had some cheap nights, between boon docking, Passport America, Escapees and National Park campgrounds with our Senior pass (thanks to Dave). We will definitely go back to AZ in the winter again next year. We will go to Florida this spring. We also spent a couple weeks in south Texas but I liked Arizona better, but to each their own. I want to go everywhere and each area of the country is unique and worth exploring.
Jerry8mm said
11:57 AM Feb 20, 2015
I like Sunset Isle RV park at Cedar Key, FL. Check it out at www.CedarKeyRV.com
You can get winter rates as low as $450 a month with 30A service. It's on the Gulf Coast north of St Pete, so it's not souther florida. The sites are close together, but it's a lively place.
Technomadia said
04:57 PM Feb 20, 2015
We've wintered a lot in Florida due to family.. plenty of ways to stay there for pretty reasonable. Cedar Key is also one of our favorites.. .waterfront spot with amazing sunsets, and a great community. We've also stayed in the Melbourne area, which is where my folks are and on the west coast near Spring Hill, where Chris' folks are. And areas in-between (we usually break up the longer stays with visiting Florida's amazing state parks.)
We're doing our first winter in the desert southwest - mostly boondocking on public lands. And loving it. Staying in some amazing places, with great connectivity (we also work online) and lots of glorious space around us. A little warm at times however, been kicking it up into the 80s lately. Oh darn. :)
- Cherie
charles said
06:15 PM Feb 20, 2015
Explore south Texas, lots of Snow Birds down there. If we did not have such a great place to winter, we would be there.
We are in south La. on Bayou Teche, this is hard to beat. Our winter in right now, Jan and Feb. then it warms up.
I note that we have had one night of freezing weather, not all day just that night.
CCC
VanMar said
09:45 PM Feb 20, 2015
Leslie,
We're in Brownsville at Winter Haven RV Resort (winterhavenresort.com). Rent from the park and it's $550 including electric. Rent from an owner and it's generally $450 plus electric. That includes water, sewer, trash and cable tv and internet. For an extra $5 per month, we get a wifi modem. Some owners want 3, 4, or 5 month minimum rentals--ours didn't and we rented for two months. Wonderful park. We're thinking about coming back next winter, mainly because the residents, both permanent and snow birds, are so nice.
Hopefully we will start our FT journey this October. I cant decide where to hang out this winter. I think we will claim Texas as our domicile, but I'm not sure we want to spend the winter there, maybe too cold. After living in the Midwest all my life, I'm looking forward to some warmth now
Anyone want to chime in and help me by giving some suggestions of areas they loved? We will stay in one place anywhere from 1-3 months, wait for the weather to warm up and then head further north for the summer. I feel like a kid in a candy store and can't pick what I want first. I do want to keep expenses in mind in choosing where we stay, maybe in the $500-600
range per month, and it would be super nice to be able to have Internet, not just the wifi. Mark needs to have access to a good dependable high speed internet for work.
I think we will probably fly down to TX sometime before we head out to take care of becoming a resident there in case we don't want to spend the winter around southern TX.
Thanks!!
Wired internet access seems to depend on the local offices, some offices are happy to provide monthly service, others a 100 miles away may require 3 to 6 months of service to even get hooked up.
Bill is right on the Money....way less money in Texas or Arizona In our park we have free Wifi that is like most parks. Service is somewhere between decent to not so decent. Free cable and you can call Time Warner and get a modem for $20-40 a month if you want faster, more reliable service.
Bill also brought up a good point about altitude in Az. Tucson is about 2,700' while Phoenix is about 900' Makes a huge difference.
We are @ 54' in our park, about 6 miles from the Progresso, Mx. crossing. We love going across for the restaurants, shopping, and just the fun of running into folks we know from other parks. Dentists and medications are available everywhere.
It has been cool this winter and you really need to be way south of San Antonio. My experience of being close to the water is if the wind is off the bay or gulf it will be cold. This morning was 56, and now up to 75. But by Wednesday of next week high will be around 59, so it is up and down....
www.rancherovillagetx.com/home.html
www.rancherovillagecircle.com/
We stayed at a couple of the Escapees Co-ops and that was really reasonable. We have friends in Maricopa, AZ so we stayed at the Co-op near Casa Grande for a couple weeks. People are friendly, but not my most favorite site, but not too bad a drive to Phoenix or to Tucson. We traveled all around southern AZ for a couple months and felt we had some cheap nights, between boon docking, Passport America, Escapees and National Park campgrounds with our Senior pass (thanks to Dave). We will definitely go back to AZ in the winter again next year. We will go to Florida this spring. We also spent a couple weeks in south Texas but I liked Arizona better, but to each their own. I want to go everywhere and each area of the country is unique and worth exploring.
You can get winter rates as low as $450 a month with 30A service. It's on the Gulf Coast north of St Pete, so it's not souther florida. The sites are close together, but it's a lively place.
We're doing our first winter in the desert southwest - mostly boondocking on public lands. And loving it. Staying in some amazing places, with great connectivity (we also work online) and lots of glorious space around us. A little warm at times however, been kicking it up into the 80s lately. Oh darn. :)
- Cherie
We are in south La. on Bayou Teche, this is hard to beat. Our winter in right now, Jan and Feb. then it warms up.
I note that we have had one night of freezing weather, not all day just that night.
CCC
Leslie,
We're in Brownsville at Winter Haven RV Resort (winterhavenresort.com). Rent from the park and it's $550 including electric. Rent from an owner and it's generally $450 plus electric. That includes water, sewer, trash and cable tv and internet. For an extra $5 per month, we get a wifi modem. Some owners want 3, 4, or 5 month minimum rentals--ours didn't and we rented for two months. Wonderful park. We're thinking about coming back next winter, mainly because the residents, both permanent and snow birds, are so nice.
Vance