Campground Review – Mesa Regal RV Resort (55+)

In this edition we will be providing a campground review of Mesa Regal RV Resort which is a 55+ resort located in Mesa, AZ.

This was our first time visiting the resort and we were there for a whopping 5 months. Now, our stated goal in our campground review series is to give an unbiased and unemotional opinion. We want our readers to have information so they can make an informed decision before spending hard earned money booking a site.

In the interest of transparency it should be known that we work-camped at this resort for the duration of our stay. The experience was less than ideal, to put it mildly, and not something we would recommend to our fellow travelers. We have documented that experience here if you would like to read more about it.

In this campground review we will attempt to take a step back from our work-camping experience and focus solely on the resort.

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Operation Enduring Mesa

It’s no secret, we had a pretty miserable experience at our Fall/Winter work-camping gig in Mesa, AZ. While we wanted to give more details throughout the months of frustration, we refrained from doing so on the off chance someone at the resort would run across our blog and it would make it’s way back to management thus causing more problems. Not that we really cared what they thought, but there were other people who were work-camping there too and it wouldn’t be fair to them if things went sideways even more because of our blog.

While it might sound like we are giving our little blog too much credit when it comes to exposure, it’s not hard to put two and two together and figure out who we are when we are at a campground. It’s happened before so it can happen again and there were about 3000 people at this resort so caution was warranted.

Prior to this gig we had only one other work-camping job and we absolutely loved it. In fact, we loved it so much we became lifelong friends with the owners of the campground and we talk to them all the time. They actually sold the campground they owned and are now full-time RV’ers too!

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January 2023 Financial Update

The first month of the new year is already in the books! Hopefully the adage “as goes January, so goes the year” holds true after a nice start to 2023. Obviously there is a long way to go and many hurdles stand in the way of positive returns for the full year, but a good start is always welcome!

As we enter our fourth month in Mesa, AZ it is clear to us that we will never agree to this type of work-camping structure in the future. We covered the different types of work-camping structures, and our current agreement, in our November 2022 Financial Update blog if you would like to take a look back. We won’t rehash all of that here, but let’s just say that the longer we stay here the more obvious it becomes that it’s not worth what we get in return. And the rate increase that took place at the start of the new year is only making matters worse.

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Full-Time RV Budgeting Revisited

In our October 2021 blog we ventured into our full-time RV budgeting and living expenses. We did this by comparing our actual expenses after a couple of months of being fully retired to the original budget we compiled during the planning phase of our journey. At the time we thought it would be helpful to our readers as the main question we get from people who are considering this lifestyle is “how much does it cost?” While it was a small sample size the data still proved to be very useful for our readers and it confirmed that we were in the ballpark with our original budget plan. But how would it hold up over the course of a year? That was a bigger question and one that would have to be provided at a later date when we had more data, which brings us to this blog.

This blog post was originally going to published one year after our October 2021 post, but we decided it would be more beneficial to hold off until we had a full calendar year worth of data. This allows us to provide a more accurate accounting of what an actual year on the road costs. It also helps us see the impact that things like work-camping have on our budget.

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November 2022 Financial Update

It’s hard to believe that we are heading into the last month of the year! While this year has been a great one for traveling the same cannot be said when it comes to finances. Maybe things will start looking up in 2023, but there are still some dark clouds on the horizon despite the recent positive turnaround in the markets. We need to remain optimistic, but at the same time we also have to be realistic about what is yet to come which is likely further economic decay at the hands of an out of step federal reserve.

We are now one month into our new work-camping jobs and it’s going fairly well so far. Some parts of the job are much more labor intensive than we were led to believe during the interview process and it can get a little frustrating because it often seems like we are doing a lot of manual labor instead of working events. On the bright side, we have been able to get more hours than are needed to cover the cost of our site fees and utilities and little extra cash never hurts.

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Happy Thanksgiving!!

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!

Murphy

Campground Review – Waters Edge RV Resort

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.

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