RVs on the move

Main entrance VDO - Snowbirds on the move

The last weekend of October, and it really is one after the other. Today alone (Oct. 31), 39 RVs that look like what you see here will arrive at VDO - most of them will spend the winter.

Valle del Oro in East Mesa is a small city on its own with close to 1,800 sites, most of which are permanent park models, which don't come and go with the seasons. Exact figures are a little hard to know, but in most RV parks in this area, the ratio is close to 80 percent park models, 20 percent RVs. The days of RVs in these parks are numbered as park operators continue to aggressively market their park models, which keep the rent coming in 12 months of the year.

Baby Boomers are the new retirees, and there are plenty of them looking for winter relief from weary winters, and park models are proving popular with them. A new park model with an added Arizona Room and carport runs about $80,000 U.S., and you get three years free rent (worth about $18,000). You see the attraction.

VDO have NO spring vacancies, and the waiting list for RV sites is a long one (over 80 as of Friday). Truth is, most people won't ask to join a list of this length, what's the point! The park is full.

Short lesson: if you haven't already figured this out, think hard before you invest big bucks in an RV, unless you know for certain where you're heading will have space for you. Especially true if your travel takes you South for the winter.

From about $62,000 with Arizona Room