As we approach 2 years on the road we are grateful that we are able to live our best life and share our adventures.
Thank you to our readers for your continued support and sticking with us! We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy spending time with your families!
Joe & Mrs. RVF
P.S. Happy 13th Birthday to our best friend and travel companion!
Welcome back to another edition of our campground review series! In this edition we will provide a campground review of Waters Edge RV Resort located in Vinita, OK.
This was our first visit to Waters Edge and it was a location we were really looking forward to visiting as the thought of spending a month on the shores of a beautiful lake sounded wonderful and relaxing! But as we have said before, you never know what you are going to get until you arrive at the campground and get settled. Hopefully this wouldn’t be a case of a skilled professional photographer making a questionable place look like a 5 star resort!
Waters Edge RV Resort is located just south of the famous Route 66 which runs through Vinita, OK. While the resort has a Vinita address it is actually located in the small town of Langley off of SR 82 with the also small town of Ketchum just north of the resort. Both are nice little towns with some local stores, fast food and gas stations, but there isn’t much past that. Vinita is a nice size town and just a short 20 minute drive from the resort. This is where you will find all of your shopping needs during your stay.
Continue reading “Campground Review – Waters Edge RV Resort”
In this edition we will be reviewing Sun Outdoors Orange Beach located in Orange Beach, Alabama.
Sun Outdoors Orange Beach is located southeast of Mobile, AL along the gulf coast. We opted to take interstate 10 to state route 59 through Foley, AL instead of paying to go over the toll bridge. The bridge isn’t expensive to take and will save you about 15 minutes. We are in no hurry these days and we are always looking to save a couple of bucks where we can, so the longer route was fine with us.
Continue reading “Campground Review – Sun Outdoors Orange Beach”
What a difference a year makes! As a matter of fact, we never published our 2020 year in review for a few reasons. Mostly because 2020 just plain sucked! The pandemic ruined everything from our son’s senior year of high school, large parts of our college road trip, his freshman year in college and our plans to start our full-time RV life. And who can forget the financial rollercoaster from the top of the world down to the pit of despair and back again? Publishing a blog post and reliving it all over again was the last thing on our minds.
Here we are at the end of another year and still dealing with the continued fallout from the pandemic. Some things have remained the same. Everything else in our lives has changed for the better.
Continue reading “2021 Year In Review”
One of the most asked questions by people looking to go full-time RVing is “How much does it cost?” The problem with answering this question is it is very subjective as the variables for full-time RV living seem to be unlimited and there is no uniform cookie cutter option when it comes to this lifestyle.
Just asking a few questions will make you quickly realize how much a full-time RV budget can vary between families:
Continue reading “Full-Time RV Budgeting”
It’s been awhile since we have done a blog for our favorite RV camping and glamping products and gadgets. A lot has changed since we created our original lists of Favorite Gadgets, RV Essentials, Budget Items and Dog Essentials. Most of the things on those lists we still use but now that we are full time there are also some new items we started using and some other items we have considered purchasing that other RV’ers have recommended to us.
Since our previous posts are now a couple of years old and camping season is heating up it seems like a great time to do a blog with an updated list. In this blog we will list RV camping and glamping favorites that we use or have used in the past as well as some items that are popular with other campers. If we do not use the product it will be noted to avoid any confusion.
Welcome to the first edition of our campground review series. This is something we wanted to try doing as we travel the country and visit campgrounds. We know that there are a ton of sites where people leave campground reviews. However part of the problem we find when doing research is that most of these reviews are based on unreasonable logic or even flat out anger.
Let’s face it, happy campers are also less likely to leave a review because they are not looking to vent. Sure people have the right to be angry and/or dissatisfied when they have what they perceive as a negative experience. But when you leave a bad review for a resort or campground because they are trying to maintain a certain standard for ALL of their customers or because their FREE Wi-Fi doesn’t let you stream movies and work on your computer all day long you are being an unreasonable person.
What we will strive to accomplish with this series is to give an honest, straightforward review about the things that are important to campers and full time RV’ers. The most important things to us when looking for a place to stay are amenities, cleanliness, cost and customer experience. These are the four things that really matter to visitors so this is what we will focus on to help people make an informed decision.
So here it goes…………….
Pechanga RV Resort is located in Temecula, CA and is part of Pechanga Resort and Casino. We have stayed here many times throughout the years so it’s kind of fitting that this resort is the first review in our series. The roads in and out are easy and well maintained. They also have a parking lot across from the main resort that can be used as a temporary dry camping area.
Amenities
Campsites – All of the sites at Pechanga RV Resort are level concrete pads with full hookups for 30/50 AMP RV’s. You can get a nice back-in site or a long pull thru site and they even have buddy sites if you are camping with friends and want to share a common area. You can choose a site that is standard with grass or you can choose a site that has added value things like tables, gazebos, fireplaces and grills. All of the options are there if you want to pay for them. Note: You can only use propane fire pits at your site.
Common Areas –The common areas are well groomed and maintained and consist of a nice sized pool area with a good amount of seating and a jacuzzi. They have guest restrooms, shower facilities, a laundry room and a dog park.
The Wi-Fi at this resort is probably as good as RV resort Wi-Fi gets. It is streamable but only when the park is below capacity. Once they are full on the weekend it is still very good but you will not be able to stream video.
Like most RV resorts on tribal lands, Pechanga RV Resort is packed with things to do. You can relax at your site, sit at the pool or if you want to go to the casino, they gladly will pick you up and drop you off right at your RV doorstep. It’s almost too convenient.
Cleanliness
The resort is kept very clean and tidy. They have plenty of trash areas to accommodate a park full of people so you don’t see overflowing trash bins. The grass, shrubs and trees appeared to be cut, clipped and maintained every other week which keeps the resort looking fresh. The common area restrooms were clean and well maintained as was the laundry room. If we have one cleanliness gripe it would be the dog area. While it is clean in appearance and the dogs love it, they use artificial turf instead of grass. Because of this it tends to be stinky with years of dog matter soaked into it and you don’t have to enter the gate before you catch a whiff.
Customer Experience
The staff at Pechanga was always helpful and courteous. There always seemed to be someone riding around on a golf cart helping people and answering questions. I also think this was their way of observing the property to make sure everyone was following the rules. Some people don’t like this but the resort is for all guests and we appreciated it.
One important thing to note is that this resort is located at a casino and the crowd starts rolling in on Thursdays and usually most leave Sunday morning. Because of this the weekends are typically jam-packed and can also be loud into the night. However we never experienced loud noise during quiet hours so kudos to the staff on that.
Cost
As you would expect, all of these amenities and convenience do come at a price. Our stay for the month was just over $1500 for a deluxe back-in. The normal daily rate typically starts at about $100 and goes up from there based on your desired location, days of the week and choice of amenities. This is certainly not a budget resort if that is what you are looking for.
Conclusion
Pechanga RV Resort is a great place to stay if you are not too concerned about cost. They have everything someone could want at an RV resort. In addition to that, they have a casino that holds live concerts and has restaurants or any type of dining you could want. Or if going to the casino is not your cup of tea, there are a large variety of restaurants and stores locally.
Bonus
A bonus item at Pechanga is sitting across from the resort at the fuel station. There they have your standard gas pumps, but that is not enough for RV’ers. At this fuel station they have an RV line that pumps out high volume fast fill diesel fuel like a pump at a truck stop, so it takes just minutes to fill up a large Class A fuel tank. They also have a high pressure air hose, long handled windshield cleaners and non-potable water so RV’ers can make sure they are hitting the road safely.
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