Are you wondering what would be a nice holiday for the Christmas period this year? Think about a motorhome trip in the USA!

I can understand what goes through your mind now:  Christmas in the USA, that is winter! It will be cold! Well, that does not have to be the case. Choose the right area for your holiday. In the Southwest of the USA, so southern California and Arizona, the temperatures easily reach 30 degrees Celsius during the day!

We can honestly say from our own experience that traveling around the southwest of the USA after finding a cheap campervan for hire in Los Angeles, we had one of our best holidays ever.

So we started in Los Angeles, flying in from Europe where we were living at the time. We picked up the campervan and stayed on a good campground near Disneyland. We spend 2 wonderful days in Disneyland and did a tour of LA the third day.

After LA we started driving north towards San Francisco. This was a great trip along the coast, and it was not busy at all. So it was very easy for us to stay overnight at the National Parks and Beach parks, no reservations needed. After 2 days San Francisco we had planned to drive inland in the direction of Lake Tahoe. Listen to some weather reports, we soon found that this was not the best thing to do. Snow was falling there, and as we did not want our water tanks to freeze. This is the only thing you need to take into account: If you hear there is frost in an area, do not go there as the insurance on your RV does not cover damage from your pipes and/or tanks freezing and bursting. It is possible to add anti-freeze to your waste water tanks, but we simply do not want to take the risk.

So we changed our plan and after visiting Sacramento we pointed our hood south towards Fresno and Kings Canyon NP. After Sequoia we debated where to spend out Christmas. We took a bit of a gamble and headed for Death Valley! This turned out to be a fantastic choice: There are a few campsites in Death Valley and the temperatures and great! In the resort a real Christmas parade is held on Christmas Day. This was wonderful to be a part of! An experience we will never forget. And the added bonus of seeing the beautiful colors in the valley.

Traveling direction Arizona.

From Death Valley we decided to pay Las Vegas a visit. We stayed on a motorhome park at one of the casino’s and had a few fun days walking around the world in miniature! Again, very pleasant temperatures. From there our travels took us through the Arizona desert in all its glory, heading for Phoenix. There are many possibilities for wonderful extra things to do along the way. Unfortunately we did not have the time to do all this, but we will rent an RV again in another year and catch up on those. Some things to mention are Grand Canyon (check the temperatures…), Hopi and Navajo Country,  Flagstaff, Sedona and Sunset Crater NM.

Around New Year we were close to Phoenix and we spend a wonderful evening with the other campers at a campground as well as a day in the sun on 1 January! What can be a better way to start the New Year!

From there we traveled to  Lake Havasu and did some boating on the lake. From there on to San Diego! San Diego has some awesome things to see, like the San Diego Zoo, Seaworld and a fantastic old city centre. With the temperatures being so pleasant, it was so easy to amble around the city, soak up the atmosphere. It was not hot and there was a very pleasant breeze. But warm enough to enjoy a drink outside a cafe. Do not miss Coronado Beach with it’s historic Hotel and great park to have a picnic and enjoy the sea air.

It is easy to pop into Mexico for a few days if time allows.

We unfortunately had to catch a flight back to Europe, so we headed back up north towards LA to bring back our campervan.

Take three or four weeks, rent an RV, and your will encounter wonderful warm weather and lovely people along the way. We had a holiday we will remember and planning to get back there for another Christmas as soon as possible. Due to this time of your being low season, this was an economical way to explore the southwest of the USA. We will be back!