New Mexico RV Parks: The RV parks in New Mexico You Want to Visit!

RV Parks in New Mexico, as far as we could see, displayed none of the lavish features offered by so many parks in the neighboring states of Arizona and Texas. We found people in the New Mexico RV Parks to be friendly and welcoming, but catering to a clientele that had different expectations than travelers in the states next door.

The following are the New Mexico RV parks my wife and I experienced on a 30,000-mile adventure that we undertook in search of our country and of ourselves. The trip is recounted in my book, In Search of America’s Heartbeat: Twelve Months on the Road.

We traveled through New Mexico both eastbound and westbound on our road trip, and stayed at different New Mexico RV parks on each visit. On the eastbound leg of our trip, we came in from southern Arizona and were bound for Texas across the southern part of New Mexico. On the westbound leg we entered from Colorado, headed ultimately into northern Arizona. On one or the other of these visits, we encountered:

Little Vineyard RV Park & Resort in Deming. This town is the first location in New Mexico you see that exhibits any vibrancy after you cross into the state from the west, bound for Las Cruces. The RV park provided gravel interior roads, 153 gravel sites, all of them pull-throughs, all with full hookups, wireless Internet access, cable TV, laundry room, LP gas sales, heated pool, hot tub and recreation hall. This is a friendly RV park, and the snowbirds wintering here put on a barbecued hamburger dinner in the recreation hall the night we arrived, and welcomed us to it. The cost of our dinner? It came to $2.50 each. This RV park is a good jumping-off point for a visit to Columbus, NM, 32 miles to the south, the town that Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked and tried to destroy early in the last century, killing several Americans.

Taos Monte Bello RV Park in El Prado, about five miles northwest of Taos. A popular RV park that provided gravel interior roads, 19 dirt sites, all pull-throughs, all with water and electric and 16 with full hookups. A limited selection of groceries. My wife and I enjoyed a stay in this New Mexico RV park for about 10 days, and every morning -- without exception -- the sun rose into a bright blue sky. Every afternoon -- also without exception -- black thunderheads rolled out of the west and over our campground and produced a violent storm with driving rain, blinding lightning and thunder that sounded like cannon fire. In less than an hour each time, the storm blew through and bright sunshine and cloudless skies followed right behind. This park is a wonderful place from which to explore Taos, an amazingly picturesque town of adobe architecture that the Spanish founded in 1615. It sits astride the old Santa Fe trail, over which goods arrived from Independence, MO, after New Mexico became part of the United States in the 1840s. It also sits at the head of the historic trail to Chihuahua, Mexico, over which traders hauled European goods to this area when it still was a part of New Spain. For a time this colorful place, with a present-day population of 4,700, was one of the most influential business and political centers in the entire Southwest.

Rancheros de Santa Fe Campground, just outside of Santa Fe. A wonderful RV park from which to visit Santa Fe and its intriguing Old Town, it provided paved and dirt interior roads, 121 sites, 97 of them dirt, 71 of them pull-throughs. Forty-seven had full hookups, 48 water and electric, two just electric. Wireless Internet access, cable TV, laundry room, LP gas sales, heated pool, recreation hall. A quiet campground under pinyon and juniper trees, with hiking trails that were nice for early morning walks.

USA RV Park in Gallup. This RV park provided paved interior roads, 120 gravel sites, 90 of them pull-throughs, about 60 with full hookups, the rest with water and electric, wireless Internet access, cable TV, laundry room, groceries, RV supplies, LP gas sales, restaurant, heated pool, recreation hall. Most of the sites were side-by-side hookups.

If you’re considering exploring any New Mexico RV parks, I hope you’ve found these descriptions helpful. If you know of any other RV parks in New Mexico that I should add to this list, e-mail me at searchforamerica@msn.com

To read a great book about life on the road, including my travels though some of the great RV parks in New Mexico and neighboring states, grab your copy of In Search of America’s Heartbeat: Twelve Months on the Road.