Tucson, Arizona Weekend Trip

We returned home from Tucson, Arizona yesterday where we wanted to check out an RV park called Voyager RV Resort and Hotel.  Here's a great video of what we saw.  It's probably easier to view the video than post a gob of photos.  What's unique about this location is that it's an RV Park and Hotel combined with two separate home areas, the Cove Resort and the Bay Resort (those are not on the map below but located in the blank spaces where the logo is as well as a bunch of park model single-wide homes.

When we first arrived, we loved the look of the park.  It had a gated entry (a must for the Tucson area - we quickly learned Tucson is not a very safe city).  It was neat and clean.  The amenities are top-notch.  You'll notice below on the map the blue and green areas - these are pet friendly zones - in the remainder of the park there are no animals allowed at all and signs are posted on all the streets when you get to an unfriendly pet zone...a bit annoying.  Also, the center of the park is where all the amenities are and a golf cart is a MUST.  The place is huge with over 1,000 residents!  It's a small city!  The Fifth Wheel / Class A / Trailer sites (in the top left blue areas) are nothing more than a concrete jungle.  It's a desert will very little grass and trees.  Here's a map of the site.

We loved all the shops and rooms for nearly everything you'd want in the park.  There are multiple pools, LOTS of pickle ball courts (pickle ball is big there), bocce ball courts, wood shop, quilt area, glass working, silver shop, library, mailboxes, restaurant, art rooms, fitness center, massage area, hair dresser and even a health clinic!

Full or Part-Timers can purchase park models (aka single-wide trailers) and most of the park consisted of the park units that can be purchased from $15-50 K.  I'd say 65% of the park consists of park models.  To see the units for sale - both new and used, click here.

A row of Park Models

The downside to the RV park section of the park, however, is that it's a bit desolate in my opinion for the RVer who doesn't live at the resort full-time or pay for full-time status.  The blue area above on the map and straight over on the green section is where the Class A / Fifth Wheel / Trailers generally park.  The bad thing is that you have to take your dogs over to a far section of the park to walk them and it's nothing but weeds.  Ick.  Roxy rolled around in the "grass" and she was filled with dead grass that took us forever to get out of her hair.  There are NO trees or grass of any kind.  The tree you do see are on the back row where the park model  homes are - there is nothing in this area by way of foliage.  Very disappointing.

Very desolate!

Now, the most interesting part - and of most appeal for us - was the residences you can purchase and still have access to all the amenities of the park.  These options are the Cove homes and the Bay homes.  The Cove homes are small units with garages.  It's in a residential style neighborhood with a park in the center of them.  You have a small backyard and the RV Park does all the front yard maintenance of your unit.  With the Cove homes, you purchase the home and the lot and you pay a $110 HOA per month.  By contrast, the Bay homes are homes with carports or RV ports for you larger Class A or Fifth Wheel units with a storage unit in the carport.  On these units, you own the home but you lease the land for $500-600 per month and the HOA is included in the lot.  The Bay homes are still under construction, so you can purchase the floor plan you desire and the type of carport. New Homes you'll be paying $94-150 K.  You can also purchase pre-owned units as well that can range from $87-175 K.  You can see a few of these home for sale here.

The Cove homes are above with yellow banner and the Bay are below.

Friday and Saturday night we stayed at a little Air BnB casita in downtown Tucson.  It was a very small studio room with a small full bed, bath and kitchenette.  It was also fully enclosed so we could bring the dogs and let them run around in the yard.  Not bad for $55 per night with 3 dogs.  We weren't excited about the neighborhood being downtown, but it was decent.  I'd use air bnb again if I needed a quick, cheap place to stay.

Friday night, we decided to attend the Tucson LDS temple.  The temple was recently built and dedicated only 3 months ago.  It was fun to go there.

We also decided to have some fun since there were so many RV Sales centers in the area (Tucson being one of the largest RV shop areas in the country) since we didn't have much else to do on Saturday, so we went to La Mesa RV on Saturday afternoon just to bum around and checked out a Class A Tiffin Allegro Bus 45 OPP for kicks and giggles.  Better photos are here.  And, here's the brochure.

We learned that Tucson has 500,000 people in the city itself.  I had no idea here were so many people there.  I was hoping it was like 50,000 or so and that really surprised me.  We thought maybe this could be a fun place to winter but really, despite the fact that the RV park was nice, I don't think I'd like being in the concrete jungle.  I think we decided for next year to spend a couple months back here in El Centro and then maybe travel the rest of the winter.  We're glad we checked it out, though and really enjoyed our quick, little trip.

My rating for the Voyager RV Park & Hotel would be a 4-star out of 5.  Amenities plenty but RV living is lacking.  Great Internet also.