Where to go in the winter, that problem.
In the west, you have Mexico to turn to, and Quartzite for those who like to (or need to) camp in the open desert. In the east, those solutions don’t work. There aren’t huge tracts of open land here and land is pricey. Using up acres for campgrounds is not good financial sense, the capitalists would say, when you can put a big box ghetto or a housing development in that space. State parks are lovely in the Southeast, but you have to leave after two weeks and that’s a lot of moving around. So it can be hard to find a nice campground for the winter that is affordable and comfortable for the 3-4 months away from the cold.
Our RV is currently out of commission and stationery in it’s storage yard spot, waiting for us to fix it and take it away from here. We are both broke and overwhelmed this year, but we need desperately to go somewhere warm and not too expensive.
OK, not Florida. While Florida has an abundance of RV parks, they are expensive and crowded. And, politically, Florida is problematic for a lot of people. Georgia is not as bad as most Southern states, but there aren’t many parks that cater to winter-only residents.
The answer might have been to just buy a piece of southern Georgia property and park there, but I already did that in NC which is perfection in every season but winter. No money left so here we are, hunkered down and hating it.
So me being an idea person, I have an idea. No idea how to make it happen, but I’m putting it out into the universe.
Small towns. Small towns that are getting boarded up, only a few stores and not many jobs. What they need is income, but no one wants to live there. There are a lot of these towns across the south, and they are starting to bring in data centers and prisons to create enough jobs to help the towns survive. But that income is both dirty in all ways and ephemeral, dependent on the politics of the moment. Not a lasting solution.
Rvers are mostly retired folks and young folks, people with limited income and limited online employment. I guess there are thousands, hundreds of thousands of us moving around with no safe or affordable place to land. It’s an unspoken tragedy of our economy the way housing has become so out of reach for so many, and folks who live full time in their cars and RVs are invisible to policy makers.
So they need each other, small towns and RVers. Think about a winter park-in at a small town, RVs parked in vacant parking lots, along side roads and in unused driveways. Those residents who have a handy electrical outlet can charge for electricity, and garden hoses can be water supplies. The town could spend a little for dump stations and town-wide Wifi. More police and some bathhouses and laundromats would also be good investments. An array of monthly costs could be offered, from low cost (say $50-100 per month) boondocking in vacant lots to paid spots with water and electricity. The town might eventually spring to build a full-service rv park for the event.
And how would the town benefit? Restaurants and shops would get a boom in business. New businesses and infrastructure would be built that the residents would enjoy year-round, and the town would get a tax bump during a normally slow period of the year. Making it into a festival can bring more benefits. RVers who full-time are often artists, musicians and craftsmen and street fairs and concerts can happen all winter. People will come from other towns for events. The town’s profile would be enhanced and more people would move there. It could be a boon for the whole area.
For the RVers, it could be a haven, a found community. So many needs that are hard to fill on the road could be available - mail and shipping, RV and car repairs, laundry, financial and legal services, and hospital and doctor visits are easier to access when you are stationary for several months. It might start to feel like home, and eventually many could stay permanently and even buy a home or land there.
This might not be right for every town, but I bet there is one or two out there that might be interested in trying out for a year or two.
The downside to this idea probably mirrors the negative reactions to the Roma migrations in Europe - suspicious small town residents believing we are all beggars and thieves. Yes, that would be problematic. But I think it's unlikely here, since the majority of the RVers out there are retired middle class folks and not inherently a minority group.
What do you think? Do you know someone in a small town who might pass on this idea? Would you go to something like this? I’m interested to hear any comments.
