October 11, 2013 – We head off in a few days for another season on Baja, the weather looks terrific all the way, nothing but blue skies and warm sunny days. Always a nice change from driving in the rain on slippery roads. A big change for us this season is we are only taking Jitterbug, unfortunately Lulu has been diagnosed with heartworm and must remain behind for treatment, she will not be happy about spending the winter in Canada. Sylvia, Lisa’s Mom will be joining us again, this time all the way to San Diego, we really enjoy her company and it is great to get out together. We have a planned stop in Modesto, CA to see our friends Terry & Lee. We are also interested in stopping at Allenworth State Historic Park, Joshua Tree National Park and perhaps visiting Algodones, Mexico not far from Yuma.
It will be great to see all our friends at Discover Baja in San Diego, they have been very helpful providing pre-paid tourist visas and insurance to all our guests and storing our tour books and other items we require for the tour. We look forward to meeting our 45 Day Tour group which includes Dom & Diane our new WagonMasters. We always enjoy our fall tour, the water is warm, the days are hot and we spend more time at all our favourite spots. This year we are also joined by 4 couples from Alberta & BC and a single RVer from Alaska, this should be a lot of fun for sure. As always we are keen to rekindle our friendships with beach vendors, campground & RV Park operators, restaurant owners and our many friends and RVers we see at our favourite stops.
Another big change for this year is returning to Vancouver for Christmas. We are flying out from San Diego on December 19th for 9 days, I must remember to take some pants. This is the first time we have been home at the holidays in 6 years.
Did you know?
15% of Canadian households own an RV, that translates to more than 1,000,000 RVs on the road in Canada. In the US one in every 10 vehicle-owning households owns an RV, representing approximately 8 million RVs. Typically in both countries, RV owners are 50 and older, married, with household income of between $55,000 and $70,000. Not surprisingly “Baby Boomers” account for the largest segment of RV ownership, as well as the fastest growing segment of the market. On average RVers travel 4,500 miles or 6,200 km annually on excursions that total 28 to 35 days annually. Reasons given for choosing an RV? Flexibility and convenience, comfort, family appeal, affordability, lure of the outdoors, versatility, and availability of rental RVs.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians and Americans snowbird to the southern US within 250 miles of the Mexican border and the Gulf of Mexico shoreline each winter. The market is enormous and the majority are RVers. Shortly after Thanksgiving, they suddenly seem to appear in large numbers and take over the road, shops and RV parks along with this comes something good for all these southern states: money. According to a study done by Arizona State professors, during the 2002-2003 winter season, more than $600 million was put into the Arizona economy alone by snowbirds living in RV/trailer/mobile homes.