Our Top 5 RV Destinations to Escape the Winter Cold

Our Top 5 RV Destinations to Escape the Winter Cold

In this episode of TravelEssary, we’re sharing our top five RV destinations in America to escape the winter cold. From sunny beaches to desert hideaways, we break down what makes each location perfect for winter RVing.

We’ll walk you through our criteria for ranking these destinations, family-friendliness, accessibility, weather, and affordability, and share a few personal stories from our own winter stays. Plus, we’ll give you tips on booking popular spots early, finding hidden gems, and making the most of your time in warmer weather.

Transcript

  We are the Essary family and we're exploring America one destination at a time. On today's episode of TravelEssary, we are going to share with you guys what we think are the top five RV destinations to escape the cold. Let's chat.

Welcome and thank you for joining us on this episode as we talk about the places to go in an RV to escape the code. Now, there are a lot of places out there that you can go to escape the code. Absolutely. But we're gonna be talking about very specific ones for very specific reasons, and that are for sure in everyone's top five.

But before we get to that list. Let's talk about what has transpired and what is going on in our lives. Well, we are getting ready here in the next few days to transition to a new spot, a new spot. This will be number two, and so it'll be a totally different kind of living arrangement.

That we're not used to. It's actually gonna be almost totally opposite than the one that we are we're at right now. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting. But we're getting ready for that. And you know, I feel like this podcast topic. is extremely relevant right now because we are about to be hitting cold weather.

The other night we had a cold front come through and it got down to the forties and we woke up and it was pretty cold. I went to sleep with the air on, but when we woke up, I was turning the fireplace on and it got me thinking of what we need to do to start doing some winter prep. But if you don't wanna do winter prep, then yes, for sure.

This is the podcast for you. you know, talking about the whole winter prep thing, winter is different in every region of America. Oh yeah. It's so vast. It's crazy. , The temperature differences now, I just got back, from up north, so Indiana wasn't that bad, but I also went to Pennsylvania.

It's cold over there. . Went to, Wisconsin. It's cold up there. I mean there's no doubt about it. It's code to what Texans would say. Is winter weather. Yeah. I'm not gonna lie, I want to experience that winter weather , as little as possible. Like I don't wanna really experience it.

, If I could be a snowbird, I would be a snowbird. Like that's, yeah. If we could get into any of these top five places mm-hmm. Whenever we try to snowbird , and get out of , the winter. Any one of them would totally work for us, right. Unfortunately, we're not gonna be able to hit any of them this winter.

, We didn't start reserving far enough in advance, which we will talk about here in a little bit. , Just keep in mind, everybody wants to hit these places in the winter time, and so what are we considering the winter time? So the winter time is going to be December, January, and February.

These are the three months of winter. They're the three coldest. So yeah, , that we are calling winter. So be prepared. , we'll talk about other things, especially when we go into locations and kinda where they are and how early they start. Because there's some times where, I mean, they're starting well.

From the time of this podcast, they started two weeks ago. Yeah. There are a lot of places up north that their RV parks shut down from October through March, and so it's already considered the, the winter time or the cold weather time., They're just already shut down. And so if you are a full-time rv or especially, it is more difficult to find places to stay, even if you did want to experience the gold weather up north than it is.

When you hit the south, yeah. They're already closing down, so they're already pushing a lot of the RVers people that are looking to either go on vacation or the full-timers like us, they're already pushing them south. Yeah. Okay. I think we should get into this 'cause there is a lot of information. There's gonna be a lot.

And so make sure that you're fully listening. You're tuned in because this information will probably come out really fast because there is a lot to cover. There is so much. We absolutely could spend the next two and a half hours talking about this, but we're gonna try to crunch this down , and we still wanna be informative.

Absolutely. We wanna make sure that y'all have all the information that you need in order to make a good decision based upon your. Requirements and stipulations. So these are our top five based off the places we've either been to or we have researched and we have based them off of four things. , Family friendly, are they family friendly, accessibility, weather, and affordability.

So that's how we came up with our list. And we're gonna start with number five. Number five is a place that. Is absolutely fantastic. So it's a great place to go to. Number five is Yuma, Arizona, and I've never been to Arizona. I haven't either. How do you know? It's fantastic if you've never been there.

Look, everyone that I've talked to that have gone to Arizona, either Phoenix or kind of where we're gonna be talking about, or even that drove through mm-hmm. Are like, it's absolutely beautiful. , It's different from us Texas people because it's more desert, rocky mountain .

Mm-hmm. And so, you know, that's some people, that's what they consider Beautiful. So, well let's talk about if it's family friendly. , So Jeremy and I both did research on this podcast 'cause it was so much to find out that we divided and conquer and I researched of whether things are family friendly. We may have different aspects of what's family friendly, so what makes Yuma, Arizona family friendly is that it has that small town relaxed, community oriented environment.

And because it has that small town, , community oriented environment, it is filled with festivals and events. If you are the kind of person that I think of like Gilmore Girls and like, every episode there's a small town festival or event going on, that's Yuma, Arizona. It is not a beach town.

Unlike most of the places we're gonna talk about on this list. Like Jeremy said, it is a desert community. It's gonna be unique compared to a lot of the other ones we talk about today. But I will tell you the one thing that I found lacking as far as family friendly is that it is mostly. In the winter time, which is peak season for all the places we're talking about today, we are talking about peak season, December through February.

It is mostly a 55 plus community, and that is crazy because whenever I looked it up, so you know, Yuma has a solid population of about 103,000, which is not a big city. Yeah, it's, that's pretty small. When I say community, I'm thinking RV community. So in the peak seasons of the winter, the RV parks, a vast majority of them are 55 plus.

Absolutely. So even with that 103. Thousand people that they have when it comes to the snowbirds. And during this peak season, they bring in over 90,000 people. Yes. The population doubles. Yeah, with the snowbirds. I was actually going to say, , it actually has a larger, increased population in the winter than it does in the summer.

I learned that too. But because it has that small town atmosphere, it's still family friendly as far as a safe environment to bring your family to. You can still feel , a calm, relaxed atmosphere because. Most of the people that come in are part of the retired community. And so yes, it's bringing in, you know, almost double the population, but , it is the older, more respectful, calmer part of our population.

Another great thing that I think is family friendly about Yuma Arizona is it is full of,, educational type experiences. There are lots of museums and things like that, so I think , that's makes it really family friendly.

And whenever you're talking about, things to do as far as, you know, like the museums and other stuff, the weather out in Yuma during this time is, it's really nice during the daytime, but it does get a little chilly on the nighttime.

So, I mean, it's roughly 71 degrees. It's not typical for most deserts, for most desert, it's gonna warm up and then it's gonna cool down really fast. Yeah. But it only gets up to like 71, 72 degrees average of those three months. So it's not an extremely hot. But it's not an extremely cold now during the cold time.

At nighttime, it gets down to like 46 degrees. There's a chill to the air even , for desert weather in the wintertime. So that is one of the things. It's gonna rain about like five days outta those months, so there's not a big accumulation of rainfall.

And like you said, it's the desert. It's gonna be a drier climate, right. So as far as the weather goes, beautiful. Now, as far as affordability, Yuma is expensive. Oh yeah. It's expensive. So depending on whether you're gonna stay in a high end, we're talking like high end resort, full hookups, full amenities, all the way to some of them literally look like parking lots. Mm-hmm. With parking lots, with hookups. You're gonna spend anywhere from 3000 a month to about 1200 a month plus your utilities. Yeah. Most of those do not even include your electric. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't cover everything, , which is crazy.

Yeah, it's very come from central Texas. That is absolutely nuts. . 1200 and you still have to cover utilities park. Yeah. And that's where basically r basically a parking lot. I'm saying like it is like that's crazy. A gravel parking lot with hookups and you're so tight in there, so on some of them that you can't even open up your slides or they're almost touching when you do open your slides.

But I can understand the point of. Just the amount of things that you can do around there. Mm-hmm. I mean, , it's right there on the Colorado River, , so it's a beautiful little valley oasis type thing. Right. That just makes it wonderful. And I mean, it is right there on the Mexico border.

So getting into Mexico is like super, super easy. Right. As long as you have all the paperwork and everything to go along with it. And, , you know, talking about the. Affordability. , You must also keep in mind that. These are the 55 plus communities. I had such a hard time finding the RV areas that weren't 55 plus that I'm not even a hundred percent sure what the pricing is on the ones that aren't.

I found one or two and I was double checking to make sure they weren't 55 plus. I think they weren't 55 plus,

and so I don't even really know what the pricing is for families. These are just for like the two or one person 55 plus , RV communities. So , I'm actually not sure what it would cost for a family of five like us to go stay in that area. And even on top of the cost of actually staying there, some of the activities and some of the places that you can go are gonna cost a little bit.

Yes, it is a prier area. , But it's not in the best location and it's not in the worst location now. It's definitely, well, it's not in the worst location for the top five that we have. Oh, no. There are two other locations we're gonna talk about that are more expensive area wise than Yuma is.

I think Yuma falls like right in the middle, price wise, I guess. Yeah, and I mean, it's only like three hours from either San San Diego or for Phoenix. So I mean, you can kind of go either. More into Arizona or even into California and still have things to do. Mm-hmm. If you want to get out of the town and you want to travel around.

But there are tons of things to do in town. We've already kind of talked about , the museums, but , because of the mountain ranges that are there, the hiking that's available is absolutely beautiful. . There's off-roading because there's a desert, there's some sand dunes that aren't too far away that you can go with a A TV and just kind of rip things up , I mean, . There are things to do, even though it's only 103,000 population city. Mm-hmm. It's still very active. Right. And keep in mind, you must book these far in advance. If you actually want to get any kind of reservations in any of the places we're talking about today.

, You're gonna want to max out your booking window. As much as possible because these are very popular destinations in the winter and they do max out pretty quickly. So coming in at number four is Gulf Shores, Alabama. So we've only ever been through Gulf Shores in the summer or the springtime. We've never been in the fall and winter, so I can't speak for the area as far as winter goes. But the area itself, we have been through and visited several times. I enjoy the Gulf Shores very much  . It is a very family friendly area.

You have the beach, right, and you have low crowd beach in the wintertime. So if you want a beach destination without those spring break crowds, then the Gulf Shores is a great place to go. It has that quieter and relaxed atmosphere. It has wide open beaches. It has some of the widest beaches along the gulf.

And again, it's another one of those places that's just like Yuma that has that small town charm to it and lots of like holiday events and festivals that go on. Yeah, this is definitely another smaller city that leans into all the activities and they have to be kinda mindful whenever they schedule these activities because it's going to be roughly 65 degrees on the high side and it's gonna be.

Mid to low forties, like 43 to 45 at the night times, but there's gonna be 22 days of rain right during those three months. So yes, they have a much higher increase of wet weather than you might does. So as far as wet weather goes, this is definitely number one for the wet weather that happens. So they do have to be mindful for that.

And although the beaches are gonna be mostly empty, you can go sit out and enjoy them. Do not get into the water. The water's gonna be cold. Oh yeah, the Gulf is cold up. The Gulf is cold except in some places during the winter, but yes, it's for the most part it's very cold. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be a little cold for swimming, , but it is one of those more of.

Affordable places. Yes. So as far as affordability goes, Gulf Shores is the second most affordable place that we're gonna talk about. , I guess because it is not as popular as a lot of the other places we're going to talk about, like Jeremy said, it doesn't get quite as warm as it does in Yuma or some of the other places.

Oh yeah, no, this is definitely the coldest place. Yes, it is the coldest one. So the crowds are as low, but it's not. Cold. It's cool weather and if you want a beach but not necessarily feel the need to get in the water, then I think it's a good, oh, absolutely. A good decision to make, but it's not very expensive.

Okay, so if you were to stay the entire three months of winter, December, January, and February. Depending on where you stay, , your total is going to be anywhere from 2000, which is very inexpensive, all the way up to 5,000 for the entire three months stay. Oh, it's not that. But here is where Gulf Shores does something different , than most of the other places is.

Most of that will include all utilities and even wifi. Oh, nice. Yes. Extra little bonus there. Yeah, so it's definitely more affordable than Yuma, Arizona, and I think it's getting more traction. , I think it's a place that a lot of people are looking at because these other places, I mean, even the rest of our top list is super packed, super packed or super expensive.

And so it's one of those places that it's affordable, it has really good temperatures. And , there's gonna be a lot to do. I mean, mobile, Alabama is an hour and a half away. Pensacola, Florida is an hour away. Those are two very large cities with, their own events that they happen that mm-hmm.

You can still travel there and get back. It's a quick day trip. Well, in my opinion, you have Gulfport and Biloxi and all of that, that are not that far away. Yeah. Everything is right there. , They have Fort Morgan, and they have a Gulf Coast Zoo that's there. Mm-hmm. Which is kind of unique four, a RV destination place. There's a lot of things to do even though it's a small city. During the summertime. ', It gets hot. I'm talking like high nineties, triple digits hot. Yeah. Well, we have been in the summer, but you know, , you have the water to cool you off. It's, yeah.

If you don't get in the water, it's gonna be extremely hot. Right. Well, even in the spring sometimes it can be pretty warm,, they are leaning more and more into. A winter destination place. Mm-hmm. And that's why they make our list. Right. So coming in at number three, and we had a lot of debate on this one did even before , we got onto this.

We did, and we'll probably have even more debate when we get into this, but number three is a really great place. It's Palm Springs, California. So Jeremy wanted this as number two. Two , based on what I looked up number two by far. Yeah. And I was like, no, let's go with number three. . It is a family friendly area.

I will say though, with Palm Springs, , you're not gonna get that small town feel that we've been talking about with the others. Yeah, you're not gonna get that. , And it's super, super crowded in the winter. Yes. But because just like Yuma, Arizona, it is mostly retired snowbirds.

During that time, other than the people who actually live in the area, , it's busy, but it's like safe, busy. Yeah. If that makes sense., It's safe. I mean, for the most part, as much as Palm Springs, California can be safe in regards to its location, but, it's more of a, um, a more active vibe than the first two that we've talked about for sure.

Yeah. . I will tell you though, one things that I that discovered,. Out of all the places Palm Springs is supposed to have the best maintained RV parks, so, oh, I could see that. I could see that , with the last bit of information that we're gonna talk about. Oh yeah. It better be the best.

Well maintained, but they're able to maintain it so well because. , The temperature is pretty much mirror at Yuma, Arizona. Mm-hmm. It's 71 degrees, it's like perfect 46 degrees at night. So it gives you that warm, it's a dry climate, it's kind of in a valley, it's surrounded by mountains. Mm-hmm. So it's only gonna rain for like five days, which is the same as Yuma.

Perfect. For outdoor activities. Oh yeah. All the activities that you wanna do are wide open to you. So as far as weather goes, absolutely beautiful. But Palm Springs is not affordable for people like us. Absolutely not. Not at this time in our lives. Maybe you have to be retired for Palm Spring. Well, there's many springs.

Well, there's, there's so many factors that go into this because I don't know if you look this up or not, but this is a major destination for Hollywood. Like in the winter time. Yes. Like this is their vacation. Like that makes sense. Spring because lemme tell you, on the high end, some of these RV resorts can be three to 5,000 a month.

Oh yeah. A month. Yeah. No, without any question blows my mind. There are less expensive ones, but again, it's going to be. In Yuma, Arizona, they're gonna be parking lots with hookups and some of them don't even have full hookups. , A lot of them don't. Of the cheaper ones, they don't have full hookups. They don't have, that's surprising sewer hookups.

But they, supply a dump station and it's very expensive. And they don't include, like, your electric is not included in that price as well. Like you have a metered electric as well. So I can see that it's also. One of the more expensive locations because it is so close to LA and places like that. It's two hours or 109 miles from LA Long Beach, Anaheim.

Yeah. And, you know, California is just expensive to live. If you're not from California and you're not making, if you're not making West Coast wages, don't expect to survive there in the wintertime unless you have some sort of like trust fund or something going on somewhere, because even the gas prices are.

Double than what they are here. Oh yeah. There's, there's no way. So it's very expensive location. So if you are going to winter there, make sure you have a nice little nest egg to take with you. Yeah. There's no way that I would get gas there. I would definitely fill it before I went into California.

Mm-hmm. Because , it's super expensive. And the reason that it is so popular, especially for like, say Hollywood, is they used to have a two hour rule. You had to be within two hours of the recording studios. So, oh, it made Palm Springs because of the temperature and like the go-to destination.

The go-to destination. And so , it's built onto that. It's leaned into that. , you can see famous people there almost any day of the week. That must be why it's so expensive, but there is so much to do. I mean, only being, you know, two hours from LA and that whole entire.

Population over there. I mean, all the LA things to do. Two hours isn't that bad. It's still kind of considered a day trip. You can kind of get in there, spend the day and get back out. Mm-hmm. But Palm Springs, because , it's another one kind of like Gulf Shores. It's extremely hot in the summertime because it's so close to the desert, like a hundred plus degrees.

But they have forests that surround them in the mountains. There are so many wonderful hiking trails and biking that you can do. I mean, it's from everything that I've seen, the pictures of the photos, all the research that we did, absolutely gorgeous. Yeah. But the reason we struggled of deciding whether to put in spot three or two is although there's so much to do in the area, and the area is very nice.

It's not affordable to your average American, and I just could not justify putting it in second place because if, you know, three quarters of America can't afford to go visit there, then it, it just doesn't deserve such a high place, in my opinion. Yeah. But whenever I looked at. Just the accessibility, everything that's around there.

How far the next cities are, , the national forests that are around there. Just , the weather, how beautiful it is. I wanted to put it at number two. Mm-hmm. But number two just makes more sense whenever you're talking about family and affordability. Yeah. So number two is definitely a personal favorite of ours.

We spent some time there last winter, last February, and that is South Padre here in Texas. Which is a gorgeous place and super, super, super, super family friendly. Oh yeah. So incredibly family friendly. It actually has low crowds even in the winter. Yes. So it's not one of those places where like the population doubles in the winter.

Yeah. And things like that. The crowds are very low in the winter. , The hotels and stuff are not packed. They're not crowded. Mm-hmm. They might be at half capacity. And then the people that do come in, majority of them are the retirees. So it's a low crowd, relaxed, safe, calm atmosphere. And we enjoyed our time there last February, so incredibly much.

And the reason that we enjoyed it so much is because of the weather as well. I mean, the weather 71 degrees, an average 56 low, so it doesn't get as low as the desert places or California, but it's just like Alabama Gulf Shores that. The water is not really swimmable.

It was some of the time we were there. Okay. So the first few days we were there, it was kind of cold and foggy and rainy. And then the last two days we were there, it was like warm and sunny. And you can go back and watch this on our YouTube vlogs of whenever we went to South Padre, we took videos every day.

But one day we are. Sitting on the beach in like hoodies. And then we left because we were getting so cold and we went and did other stuff and then spent the rest of the day like eating the heated pool. And then the very next day, by that late afternoon, we were out there in swimsuits and in the water and playing and it was hot.

And it's just that time of the year where it, you just don't know. You got, you gotta prepare for all of the. All of the things, we always say that about Texas anyway. You just never know what the weather's gonna do. But I mean, for the most part, other than the baby, we didn't really need jackets or anything like that.

Right. And it, it hardly rains on us. , It rains about nine days out of those three months.

It's one of those places that whenever you go, you really don't have to worry about the amount of rain, although it will give you a light shower every once in a while, and South Padre is definitely the most affordable. Definitely out of everything on our list is the most affordable. I will tell you guys, just staying in the hotel for five days, I spent less than $300 whenever we went in February.

But if you're in an RV which I think their high end on South Padre is a KOA that's there. You're gonna spend less than $1,200 a month, and that's on the high end. But many people will boondock in South Padre, so they're spending nothing. They're spending nothing at all. You can drive up and down the beaches on the far end of the island and it's just lined up on both sides with people that are boondocking out there on the beach because, like the Gulf Shores, it has big, wide expanded beaches and so it's a great place for boondocking if you like to boondock.

But it's definitely affordable for, I feel like any budget. The only thing, and the reason that it's number two and was so close to being number three, is because of the accessibility. Like getting on and off of the island, getting on and off the island. There's really only one way on the island. Mm-hmm.

And then the things to do on the island, , which is a good amount of things that you can do on the island while you're there. Everything is open, but the next closest town is Brownsville. It's a 45 minute drive, which is one of the smallest drives that we have. Mm-hmm. So like the next closest thing.

But Brownsville within itself is not a large city. Now , There's an entry point to Mexico in Brownsville that you can go into Mexico. Yeah, I was gonna say, if you wanna go down into Mexico where the weather gets even warmer, it's a great place to stay and take trips down into Mexico.

Yeah. Do quick excursions down there. , It's absolutely beautiful. But as far as like, so this is one of those weird things. South Padre doesn't lean into their snowbirds. No, they don't. They actually shut a lot of stuff down in the winter. A lot of the things that we did had nothing to do with like the touristy stuff.

Right. , That is their time that they are spending to fix everything they revamp. That's their maintaining maintenance. Yeah. That, that's all that kind of stuff going on because. Their spring break and their summer vacation, people far outnumber The snowbirds. Yeah. Whereas

these other three places that we've already talked about, it's all about the snowbirds, right? That's where their big place comes from. And the next one we we're gonna talk about is too, for sure. It's kind of both. Just because of where it's located at. Yeah. We still found plenty to do though, when we were there.

20. You have SpaceX and no, , there's plenty of trips that you can go on. Yeah. So many nature trails and historical locations and Yeah. But you look at these other ones, I mean. The other ones have LA beside it. They have, yeah, they have the bigger towns. There's no big town near South Pad. Yeah. There's no big towns.

So that, that's the only drawback that kind of comes away from it. That kind of went back and forth. Mm-hmm. If it had more things to do, accessibility to bigger cities, you know, Houston, maybe something of that nature. Mm-hmm. Then this would easy number two. Yeah, super easy, but because you kind of have to go down to get back up into the rest of Texas, , it's really weird to get into and see.

For me, it was so much more about affordability because I feel like anybody on any budget could afford to go stay, you know, even if just a few weeks at South Padre because it's, it's just more affordable. It's, yes. Let's talk about our number one. Number one, which we had no problems deciding a number one.

Absolutely not. , This has. Either , the number one or the number two of every single category that we have. Yeah, so number one is the Florida Keys, because it's the Florida Keys, , there's no arguing that, I mean, it's such an obvious answer. , It has to be. And some people, you know, maybe on the West Coast, they're like, oh, we love our place over here.

And it's like,. Have you ever, but have you been to the Keys now? , We haven't been to the Keys, but we've been to Orlando a lot. Mm-hmm. And we love Orlando. I do. I can only imagine. I do plan on taking a trip into the Keys this coming year, though, while we're in Florida for a few months. So I am excited about that.

, I can only imagine what this, I mean, there's so many videos and so many things , that are going on in the Florida Keys. Yeah. So let's talk about the keys. So if you're in Key West, which is like the very most tip of the Keys, it's like the furthest island down the chain, I believe. So Key West is more of that nightlife vibe.

It's more of the clubbing, the alcohol, the adult type life. So if you're there with your family and your children, I say you probably want to avoid Key West specifically in the nighttime. It's not going to be. A family vibe, but from Key Largo through all the other ones, that's where you wanna go. That is the family vibe because they focus on.

Water sports and small town vibes and small town charm and events and , it's not that party atmosphere. I think Key West is like the year long Spring Break Island. It's like spring break, but all year long on Key West. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, and what people need to realize is the Florida Keys is one of the most touristed area in the United States from people that are outside of the us.

We've already talked about in a podcast before, how Orlando specifically is the number one visited place because of Disney World from people that are outside of the us but then a lot of them. Which I'm so, I'm so jealous of people like in the UK and stuff, they get such better holidays than we do, and they get to take long, like winter breaks.

Yeah, they do. Well, one of the places a lot of them visit is the Keys in Florida. And it is, the reason that everyone goes there is because of the weather. Mid seventies, 75 degrees is the high, maybe up into the eighties on the rare occasions, but it doesn't get cold, 65, 66 degrees. There's maybe a 10, 15 degree temperature where all these other ones are like.

25 to 30. Mm-hmm. No, there's not a big change. Like the keys is perfect, temperatures all year long, and so it is, it's so consistent. It's so beautiful. So. From even October to April, they only get like 25% of , their rain during that time. So they're not getting a whole lot of rain.

I mean, there's gonna be a light shower every once in while it's mid, a hurricane comes through or something. But there's no hurricanes. There's like zero chances of hurricanes coming through December, January, and February. Yeah. 'cause it's mostly what, October, November, September. They either happen before or they happened afterwards.

Yeah. And the water is still beautiful. Oh my gosh, definitely by far, I think the most beautiful place out of all the places that we're talking about today. Like hands down, the most beautiful. The most beautiful. Absolutely. Is it affordable though? So the Florida Keys is anywhere from 1200 to $3,000 a month, again, depending on where you are staying.

So , it's very much similar to the Gulf Shores in Alabama. Yeah, it's definitely not, it's in the mid range, a South Padre, but it's definitely not as expensive as Palm Springs. Yeah. So, however. In peak season especially, it's expensive as far as eating, shopping, excursions like that. Oh no.

They like absolutely know snowbirds are coming. Yes, yes, absolutely. Without a question, and it's very, very, very expensive. The Florida Keys, as far as RVs go, it is also a very heavy 55 plus community. There are RV parks and places that you can go that are not a 55 plus requirement, but most of them are.

But did you know that there is a state park in the Florida Keys? I did. And you can stay there mainly because of the map. Yeah, you can stay there and of course you don't have to be 55 plus, but then with the state park,, you will not have full hookups. And you have your like 14 day max. Yeah. Your max day and stuff.

Yeah. So that's not as fun. Again, the Florida Keys, you guys sometimes has to be booked almost a year in advance. That's how popular it is in the winter. Like if you're gonna go, you're gonna book it like 200 days in advance. It's so accessible. Now, granted, you gotta, you gotta go all the way down to Florida, but I'm talking about.

If you're there in the Keys, even to get to Miami is like a two hour, and of course, Miami brings in Miami Fort Lauderdale, , long Beach. Mm-hmm. All those cities, they're all just kind of connected and touching. It's their own metropolitan. So all , the activities that go on in Miami, it's almost like Key West in some areas.

Mm-hmm. Where , it's a party all the time. The party don't stop. But then there's other places that, you know, they lean into the museum, to the history, the agricultural, the art, , the culture itself. Mm-hmm. The diverse cultures that are in Miami. Yeah. And in , the Florida Keys. There's so much things going on , there. It's fantastic. I will say though, it is similar to South Padre in the instance that as far as accessibility to the island, you have the one highway. Yeah. That part's, part's really hard. It's just like South Padre and so.

You're not gonna get anywhere in a hurry if it's during a peak season. But Miami is so much bigger than Brownsville. Oh, absolutely. In so many different ways. Absolutely. But like Misty said, I mean, there's Duval Street that's known for its nightlife

, mallory Square, it's nightly, , sunset Celebrations that happen are absolutely fantastic.

Yeah, we know Florida's one of our favorite places to go visit because it's like the activities are endless and so it's great. . , So those are our top five. Some places we have been. Some places we're gonna have to try to go, , even Palm Springs.

One day we'll be able to afford you. California. Yes. And one day we will be old enough to get into Yuma. Yes. So, you know, maybe after some of the kids leave or you know, kind of do whatever, but all these places in our top five. As far as RV life goes for the wintertime, the snowbirds, these are the top five.

 So if you are thinking you want to escape the cold this winter, or maybe next winter. Because it's getting kind of late to make those reservations. But if you wanna escape the cold, we encourage you to look into these five destinations and see if they're for you.

Thanks for joining us and being a part of our Travel Esri family.