Technomadia

Home Base: 
High-tech nomads on the road full time since 2006.
Type of RV: 
1961 GM 4106 (35' Vintage Bus)
https://www.facebook.com/Technomadia
@Technomadia
143 Reviews
33 States Visited

Recent Reviews


3

Odd... but decent enough

Driving between Reno and Las Vegas, Tonopah is a natural half way point to stop for the night. But there are limited options in the area. We were directed to Joy Land from Passport America, touting a $9 rate.

Finding the park was a bit of a challenge. The main road goes over an overpass, and if you miss the small sign on the north side of the road - you'll find yourself back tracking through a small neighborhood with dirt roads.

The park is made up of 3 'lots', with only one of them having an office. We first pulled into Lot 3, not sure what was up and with little signage to give us much hint. We then find our way to the office - where the owner/manager met us. He was direct and to the point, and questioned why we didn't just call him from Lot 3 to come up there. A little odd, considering there was no such instructions.

We took a back in spot in Lot 1 that was quite fine. The lot only had one other rig in it, and was a well maintained dirt spot. For our PA $9 rate, we got full hook-ups and access to laundry. We consider this a great deal, and exactly what we needed.

Cell phone service for AT&T and Verizon were both quite spotty.

Date of Stay:
 September, 2011
Rate Paid:
 $9.00

5

Pure Bliss

Whoever thought 'Let's build a RV Park next to these natural hot mineral springs' is a genius!

The park itself is quaint - mostly pull thru's, with nice shade trees and a picnic table. The RV Office is an old RV, with super friendly folks. Pricing is based on the number of people in your rig, as your RV site includes use of the hot springs.

There are three springs of varying temps, each in a private building (which are old railroad buildings). You're allowed 30-40 minutes at a time in each room to yourself. The springs are open from 8a - 8p, however the camp showers are open 24/7 and use the same mineral spring water.

An absolutely relaxing place to stop when driving in/out of Las Vegas or Death Valley.

Downsides? The park is pretty close to the highway 95, so there is highway noise. And cell signal ain't so great. AT&T was off network Edge, and Verizon was 2G with intermittent signal.

Date of Stay:
 August, 2011
Rate Paid:
 $20.00

5

Beautiful Views!

This is a very well maintained park with excellent views of Lake Mead. Almost all spots have a bit of a view, even if you don't spring for the Lake View sites (which are very spacious, and set up to pull forward in for best viewing from a motorhome).

A lot of the park are permanent manufactured homes, and the rest RV Park. The staff is extremely friendly and helpful.

The park is inside the Lake Mead Recreational Area, and it is a fee area - so you will pay to enter the park (which was $10 for a 7 day pass), plus your spot. You can use your national park pass to get in for free.

We selected a pull-thru site for $32/night, plus tax and were given one with a great view. We did feel the price is somewhat steep for being on national park land. But it is beautiful!

Be prepared for lots of rental RVs, especially in the lake front view area.

We had great AT&T and Verizon 3G signal, that was faster than the park's free wifi. They only give you one wifi pass code per spot anyway.

Date of Stay:
 August, 2011
Rate Paid:
 $35.00

4

Cute Park, Great Location

While in Phoenix attending to some RV upgrades, we needed to seek emergency power for our coach as our generator was overheating. This park was listed by Passport America, and it was nearby - so that's where we headed.

Upon arrival, we could find no one in the office and their phone went unanswered. There were no instructions on the door either of how to go about self checking in.

Given the high temps, we went ahead and grabbed a spot and plugged in, after leaving a message on their machine... and hoped that was ok.

3-days later, still no one in the office. And the envelop we left on our windshield with payment of the PA rate untouched. Guessing they're just on vacation or something?

The park is pleasant enough, the sites all have a grass patch, a sizable concrete patio and many had shade trees. All spaces are back-in. The power outlet is at the back of the space, and we had to pull in completely to the rear for our cord to reach. Also the sewer drain at our site was in disrepair.

A lot of long term residents in a variety of ages and sizes of rigs, but all were quiet and friendly. The pool was well maintained, and open 24 hrs a day. And a yard maintenance crew was by during our stay. The park presented as fairly well maintained.

AT&T and Verizon 3G signal was great, and an easy drive to a lot of amenities in northern Phoenix.

Date of Stay:
 August, 2011
Rate Paid:
 $20.00

3

Not bad.. but not great either

We stayed here for two weeks during the summer to escape the Arizona heat, and were directed here to join up with some friends. This park doesn't seem to have a website of its own, so difficult to find out information about it.

Positives:

- Within 1.5 miles of major shopping (grocery, Best Buy, Home Depot, mall, RV stores, etc.) - and with the nice side walk along 89, it's a reasonable walk. There are two convenience stores right by the park.
- It backs up to the national forest, and has access to hiking trails.
- Their laundry facility is reasonably priced, although their units are old.
- The management appears friendly on the outside, and are super helpful. They escort you to your site and help you get settled.
- There are trees throughout the park, and many of the sites are shaded (ours wasn't).
- They have mail boxes in the main office for every site - makes receiving mail/items easy.
- They have recycling on site.

Negatives:

- There are no bath facility whatsoever at this park. Make sure you are fully self contained for showers, toilet, etc.
- If you have your own washing machine in your rig, they do not allow you to use it.
- If you run your A/C or electric heat - they charge you $2/day, regardless of how much you ran it (a minute or 20 hours).
- They have age limits on their rigs, but don't tell you about it or ask when you make your reservation. When we arrived, they let us in - but then we overheard the manager complaining about our 1961 well maintained bus conversion to other guests that they shouldn't have let us in (despite there being plenty of other older rigs in the park). They never said anything directly to us, but it made us uncomfortable knowing we really weren't welcome afterall.
- The sites are oddly set up, many adjoining other sites in ways that create the minimal of privacy. In our site, our porch opened unto our neighbors, and the other side of our rig was right against our other neighbor. Many other sites throughout the park had very odd placement - such as windshields of motorhomes looming over someone else's porch, etc.
- Our site was not level, but the management was nice enough to bring us extra wood to help level us.
- Aside from a laundry room and small room with card tables - there are no amenities such as pools, etc.

Another consideration is that this is an 'adult oriented' park. They do not allow children in, but any adult is welcome (ie. it's not a 55+ park). Aside from not allowing children, we didn't not anything else 'adult oriented' about it (bummer, no naked hot tubbing!!).

All and all.. not a bad place to stay while in the area, as long as it meets your needs.

Verizon and AT&T both had strong 3G signal, although our Verizon service (and that of our friend's) was intermittent throughout our stay. The park does offer free wifi - but it was very hit or miss if we could get connect at our site.

The only discount the park offers is Good Sam, the rate below reflects that.

Date of Stay:
 August, 2011
Rate Paid:
 $26.00

3

It's on the Strip!

The reason to stay here is because it's on the strip. This is a clean and well maintained park, with access to the amenities of Circus Circus. The staff was very friendly.

The downsides are:
- It is a big parking lot with hook-ups. Don't expect landscaping, shade or anything resembling green.
- In our opinion, there were not enough restrooms and showers for the number of spaces.
- It's on the north end of the strip and quite a walk to the popular south end.

The price is steep, and likely more expensive than you can find a last minute hotel deal. But if you want to stay on the strip, this is your only option. In the future, we'll probably check out other nearby RV resorts that are cheaper and offer shuttle service to the strip.

Date of Stay:
 August, 2008
Rate Paid:
 $55.00

4

Another Yuma Park

We randomly selected this park when we bought our new (to us) vintage bus in Yuma. Yuma is covered in similar parks, and they really all kinda look the same. This one just happened to be closet to where we were.

The park is owned by Encore, and the summer staff was super friendly (even if a bit slow). They allowed us to take care of a lot of stuff while we were in the park, like getting our new rig detailed and serviced. In fact, two or our neighbors got their rigs painted while we were there.

Most of the park is single wide affixed homes, and there are some scattered RV spots.

They do have a very nice salt water pool & spa, which we used daily to beat the heat before bed time. The bath houses were clean and nice.

The price for this park does seem higher than others in the area, and had we felt safe moving our rig on 20 year old tires, we may have switched to a neighboring park. Our rate reflects our Passport America discount, which is good for one week during the summer months.

Both Verizon and AT&T had solid 3G signal.

Date of Stay:
 June, 2011
Rate Paid:
 $28.00

3

All about the location

This park is all about the location - it's the closet to Philadelphia. And there's not much else available in the area. It is well maintained - sites and facilities appear to be cleaned regularly. There are activities to be done on site, if you're into that sort of thing.

The sites are decently spread out, but a bit on top of each other. When we were here, it wasn't full - so they spaced out the rigs nicely. Would imagine that if it was full, it wouldn't feel as spacious.

The front section is tighter and more geared towards short term patrons, and not nearly as shaded. The back part is more scenic, shaded and seems to be where they place the longer term stays and big rigs. The pond, which is quite lovely, is a nice view from many of the back spots.

This is a private park, and they have a list of rules that out numbers their amenities. It made us feel a bit like children being reprimanded by what they will not tolerate.

There is also evidence that they're not as trusting of their short term tenants, as evidenced by the differences in the front bath house versus the rear. In the front bathhouse, all of the showers are controlled by a single push button that delivers a timed spray of water with no say in temperature (it's just above luke warm). It ironic thing is.. I ended up using more water for my shower than I would normally, because I had to wait for a water cycle to end! Their sink faucets are similarly on timers, making brushing teeth difficult.

But in the rear bathhouse, the showers are on standard controls.

The wifi did work fine (they say its park wide and we had no difficulty getting it at our site).

All and all.. not a bad place to say. But way too pricey for what is offered. The below rate reflects a 10% AAA cash discount.

Date of Stay:
 May, 2011
Rate Paid:
 $38.00

5

Lovely Shaded Park

A very peaceful and lovely park not too far outside of the hectic pace of the DC area. All of the spots on the electric loop are very well spaced out and shaded. You hardly notice your neighbors next door.

The bathhouse is large, and was under construction when we were there - converting one of the showers. It'll be very nice when it's completed.

All spots have electric, but no water. There are spigots located throughout the loop for filling bottles and such.

A bit pricey for electric only, but for the area... suppose it's reasonable.

Fairly decent AT&T 3G signal, but Verizon wasn't doing so great.

Date of Stay:
 May, 2011
Rate Paid:
 $31.00

5

Beautiful and Peaceful!

This little campground sits in between the Potomoc River and C&O canal, and many of the sites are riverfront. It's run by the adorable city of Brunswick and was formerly an airstrip. Many shade trees and plenty of walking. There's also a boat ramp.

A downside for some might be the railroad station across the way, as there is constant sounds of trains stopping and starting (personally, we like this). There's a train museum in town.

Kinda difficult to find, as its not well marked - follow A Street across the rail road tracks, and you'll eventually find a sign towards to the campground. You'll go along the old canal towpath for a while before you reach the park.

A very solid 3G signal on both AT&T and Verizon and scenic views. They offer a 15% discount for local residents, RV club members and handicap folks. Rates are higher on the weekends, and the campground is only open from April - November.

All and all.. a quaint park in a quaint town. A beautiful experience.

Date of Stay:
 May, 2011
Rate Paid:
 $24.25

Recent Photos