We chose to come to Quartzsite, Arizona, for many reasons, including:

• Location – It is located just off of the I-10 about 140 miles east of Palm Springs, California, and about 125 miles west of Phoenix, Arizona, making it the halfway point for our travels between these two stops of ours. 
• Reputation – Quartzsite is like Mecca for RVers.  With tons of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land surrounding the town, boondockers find almost limitless places to park their rigs.  Not into boondocking?  I counted 52 RV parks listed on Google.  Lots of people that we had heard of or met along the way said it was a great place to winter.
• Price – We reserved a full hook-up site with 50-amp service for under $300 + tax & electric for the month.  With many other parks costing well over $1000 per month and the unexpected costly repairs we’ve made to our motorhome in our first seven months on the road, this would help balance our cost of living a bit.
• Cell-Phone Coverage – Coverage maps indicate that the broadcast signal is very good.  While true, this doesn’t account for the number of people using cell phones in the area.  So while getting a signal isn’t a problem, having enough bandwidth to browse the internet without pause or to stream a movie on Netflix or Amazon Prime is rough going.
• Weather – As we chase 70-degree weather across the country and run from cold, snowy weather, average winter temperatures in Quartzsite are near perfect.  December average highs are about 65 degrees and average lows around 39 degrees.
• Xscapers – A group of working-aged RVers have planned a New Year’s Eve event that we plan to attend.

I set my expectations low, imagining a town with very limited services.  I knew that the closest major grocery store (Albertson’s) was about 25 minutes away in Blythe, California, and that was with no traffic at the border crossing into California.  If I wanted a store the size of Wal-Mart, I would need to drive about 40 minutes north to Parker or 90 minutes south to Yuma.  I stocked our pantry, refrigerator, and freezer with food to get us through most of the month before leaving the Palm Desert area.  I anticipated cooking most of our meals, although, admittedly, I hadn’t looked at the number of restaurants in the area. 

I was surprised by the number of businesses and impressed with the city services offered.  By U.S. census records from 2010, the town is only 3,677 people.  However, an estimated 2 million people visit every year.  Most Quartzsite visitors either attend the two-month-long gem show  & swap meet in January and February or a week-long RV trade show also in January.  Additionally, the town is centered between two exits off of the I-10, making it a convenient stop not only for RVers but for truckers and other travelers.  And with the California border just seventeen or eighteen miles away, and higher fuel prices across the border, you can only imagine how many travelers stop off on their way through town.

About five days into our arrival in Quartzsite, Arizona, I began to refer to it as Quirksite.  Our first day in town had us having lunch at the Quartzsite Yacht Club.  With the nearest body of water, the Colorado River, about twenty miles away, this was a surprising find. 

Further research about the history of the town uncovered many interesting facts, including information about Hi Jolly (Hadji Ally), one of the first U.S. camel drivers in the experimental Army Camel Corps of the mid-1800s.  Did you know that the U.S. had organized a group of camel drivers to carry goods across the desert?  Up to 30 years after their abandonment, the camels wandered the desert and passed through town.

While the camel plays mascot to Quartzsite, other points of interest include the ruins of Fort Tyson, a fort built in the 1850s to protect the town from marauding Apache Indians, and Tyson’s Well Stage Station which opened in 1866. 

Despite the convenient location and long history of services, Quartzsite seems like it never fully launched.  I’m certain that four months of average temperatures above 100 degrees help prevent progression.  Lack of progress makes it a very inexpensive place for snowbirds to winter.  It also makes it a very inexpensive place for people living on the fringes of society.  Between our motorhome facing Main Street, daily walks with Skipper, and local exploration by car, I spent three weeks watching people and gaining awareness of what seems to be a population of people homeless by choice.  And I’m not talking about other people living as nomads like us with a car, van, or motorhome. 

As you would imagine, most of the population, both full-time and snowbirds, are over sixty.  Brian and I have been feeling very young here.  Our visit to Quartzsite in December was early for their season, so our experience is not that of someone visiting in January or February, although I’m sure that I don’t want to be near town when the population explodes from four to seven figures.

Off-roading in a Jeep, riding ATVs, geocaching, rock collecting, and shopping in swap meets seem to be the biggest hobbies for folks in the area.  Our Jeep isn’t off-road-ready, nor do we own an ATV.  Both of these things would have given us something to do.  I find the swap meets quirky as well.  From the little bit of time that I spent at the swap meets, it seems that they are like an art fair that meets a garage sale that meets a closeout rack.  There are at least four swap meets in town growing daily with additional vendors as prime season draws closer.  I admit, I’m a terrible shopper.  I don’t like to shop.  I make lists, and I buy what’s on my list, but I prefer not to shop.  When I need new clothes, I seek out the well-merchandised display set up by size.  The closeout rack is the last place I would look.

Only two restaurants in town stay open past 7:00 p.m., and the second one only started staying open a week or so after our arrival.  Yes, we’ve been to both. A couple of times. 😊  Given this limit and winter’s early sunsets, we had lots of time to stream TV and cheesy holiday movies.  The only problem was the lack of bandwidth to get a constant clear picture.  Every choice resulted in minutes lost waiting for the video to complete buffering to be able to broadcast.  Once completed, the picture we were able to see was blurry.  I felt like I was watching TV in my parent’s room in the late 1970s. 

Would we come back to Quartzsite?  Maybe.  If we were looking for a place to stop for a night or two, maybe even a week, we would return.  It’s also a good place to gather with a group on BLM land for a few days as we did with the Xscapers for New Year’s Eve.  

It allowed us to catch our breath, recuperate from a bit of travel fatigue, and not do much.  We’ve learned that it’s not what we prefer in a place for a month or more long-term stay.  And learning is good.  With each place we stay we learn more about our preferences, this lifestyle, and what works best for us.