By January the desert north of Yuma has filled in with a town of its own: rows of motorhomes and trailers spread across creosote and palo verde, with ramadas scattered between them. Back in town the same winter plays out on hookup pads under date palms, with a blue sky that barely changes from one week to the next. Snowbirds arrive in the fall and stay until the heat returns in spring, and a family with a motorhome for a week borrows their routine of warm afternoons on the river and cool, unhurried nights.
Where you park decides what kind of week it is. A hookup park in town is the easy version, with power, water and sewer at the pad and the river a short drive off. The open desert at Imperial Dam is the other one, quieter and wider, where the rig carries its own water and the neighbors have been there since fall.
Imperial Dam, a dry-camped week on BLM desert
Out at Imperial Dam the rig sits on open ground with room around it, and the awning and a ring of camp chairs turn into the week's living room. The BLM's long-term visitor area covers about 3,500 acres across the river in California, north of town, and a long-term or short-visit permit covers the stay.
The rig runs on its own tanks out here, but the BLM keeps a black-water dump with water, grey-water dump sites, restrooms with outdoor showers, and trash on the grounds. That makes the rhythm simple: a few dry nights, a run to dump and refill, then back to your spot. Families used to hookups will find the grey tank fills faster than anything else.
Yuma's hookup parks, and booking the pad first
The in-town winter is a palm-lined park with full hookups, a pool, and a pickleball court. Most of those parks are age-restricted, though. Adobe Village and Arizona West both describe themselves as 55-plus communities, so whichever park or listing takes families decides where your pad is.
Book that pad before the motorhome. December and January are the tightest weeks of the snowbird season, and the park's site length sets the size of rig worth renting. For two people on a shorter trip, Arizona's campervan rentals cover the smaller end. If Yuma's parks are full or the family wants a bigger resort scene, the Mesa and Apache Junction winter belt has its own Mesa RV page.
Days from a town pad go to the Colorado. Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park keeps its adobe cell block on the river bluff, and an hour among the old walls with the water below is worth the morning. Upriver, Martinez Lake is a local weekend habit at the edge of the river refuge, a cattail-edged channel and a marina dock that make an easy day out before heading back to the pad for the night.
Glamis and the Imperial Sand Dunes
Stand at the foot of a slip face at Glamis and the dune buggies lined up along the ridge above look like toys. The Imperial Sand Dunes stretch more than 40 miles, with dunes up to 300 feet, and a dune week means camping the rig right on BLM sand while the group rides by day.
Camping on the sand is dry, so the week runs on what the rig carries in. Leave Yuma with the fresh tank full and the others empty, and with a big group, plan a midweek trip back to town to dump and refill. The dunes and Imperial Dam share the same winter, so a family can also split the week, a few loud nights on the sand and the rest on the quiet flat upriver.