By Bob Difley
If you haven’t been to Quartzsite yet, you’ve missed it for the season. It’s starting to get hot – it’s already passing 80 degrees everyday and will move progressively warmer – and snowbirds are leaving in droves. But never fear, it will still be there next year, and if you’ve thought about going but just haven’t made the move yet, read the article below by Melanie Cullen of Blue Sky Energy and you’ll get a better idea of what the Quartzsite experience, especially the RV Show, is all about.
Looking Back and Ahead at the Quartzsite RV Show
By Melanie Cullen, Blue Sky Energy, Inc.
While dry camping last January at the 31st annual Quartzsite RV Show, Rick and I reminisced about how Quartzsite (or Q) has changed over the last 15 years that we’ve been going and what we think the next 15 years might bring. Dry camping or “boondocking” is camping without any hookups or connections to water, power or a sewer. We bring everything we need including water and use solar to charge our RV battery for electricity. Over the years, Q has grown significantly in size from around 60,000 in 1999 to over 150,000 this year, and become more focused on making RV living cozy, which will have a big impact on how RVs are powered in the future.
When we first went to the Quartzsite RV Show in ’99, the RV Pavilion was packed with big-ticket items like RV satellites, tow hitches, and companies offering to install a solar array on your vehicle. It was an amazing place to be if you were looking to seriously overhaul or upgrade your RV. While the crowds at Q were smaller, the attendees were extremely passionate and technical RV lovers. They could have told you the specs about every aspect of their RV from the flash stall of their transmission to the max output current of their charge controller. It was a beautiful gathering of a tight group of dedicated RV enthusiasts.
Since then, the Quartzsite RV Show has boomed and this year alone it drew over 150,000 attendees. It’s not just for tech nuts like us anymore; it’s now the “Woodstock” of the RV world! It draws the snowbirds coming down from Harrisburg on their first month-long dry camping trip, the recent retiree making a quick trip from Bakersfield, and of course the full timers who stop in on their second lap around America.
As the show has grown, the number and type of vendors have exploded. At the flea markets and swap meets, you can find everything from geodes to GPS devices, and frying pans to dream catchers. If you can’t find it at Quartzsite, it probably doesn’t exist! One shop that’s a Quartzsite legend is the Reader’s Oasis Bookstore. This unique bookstore has a great collection of vintage and new books, CDs, and other knick-knacks. The selection of goods is almost as eccentric as the owner, Paul Winer, who is a naturalist and wears very little while working. After the initial shock of seeing a mostly naked man working in his store, you quickly forget about his lack of clothing due to the friendly nature of everyone working there, including Paul.
While the show can be high-spirited and a little whacky, it can also be a place for contemplation and reverence. Every year, we visit a little-known secret garden, Celias Rainbow Gardens, which was created by the community in memory of a little 8-year old girl who passed away. Celia loved Q and the Gardens are a beautiful way the Quartzsite community has honored her. It’s always a powerful experience and a good reminder that even as Q grows, the community is still tightknit.
Another amazing aspect is that despite the larger crowds, you can still go to Quartzsite to get away from it all. There are petroglyphs and great isolated hiking spots nearby. One of our favorite spots is Palm Canyon on the Kofa Wildlife Refuge, about 15 miles south of Q.
Despite the crowds, at Quartzsite there is also plenty of space to camp, sit by a campfire at night, look at the stars, and enjoy the peace and quiet. Part of the peaceful environment is due to the number of RVs with solar arrays which has skyrocketed. Now it feels like one out of every two RVs silently powers up all their gadgets with sun. It’s great, not only for the environment and the RV owner’s wallet, but also because it helps keep the campgrounds quiet. Can you imagine how loud It would be if every one of the tens of thousands of RVs at Q ran a generator? I’m getting a headache just thinking about it!
Looking ahead at the next 15 years, the Quartzsite RV Show will keep getting bigger and attracting a more general crowd. Thanks to items like cheaper flat screen TVs, smart phones, and affordable solar arrays with charge controllers to power all your gizmos, it is easy to have all the comforts of home while you’re dry camping. As RVing gets easier and more comfortable (and more boomers start retiring), even more people will dip their toes into the RV world, and what better place to do it than at Quartzsite?
As the crowds get bigger, there probably will be some growing pains in accommodating newbies. The few restaurants in the area will need more room to hold more customers exhausted after a good day of shopping! Visitors might even have to spend more time shopping around as there will be tons of specialized vendors there to satisfy the diverse needs of a huge crowd, but they’re sure to find exactly what they want. It is truly is one of the largest (if not the largest) gatherings of RVers in the world and certainly needs to be experienced at least once.
In the end, as Quartzsite continues to grow and evolve, it will still be a wonderful place for RVers of all types to gather and relax by the Dome Rock Mountains with near perfect temperatures during the day and clear starlit skies at night.
Visiting Q is one of our favorite camping trips and we think you’ll like it too. See you next year!
About Blue Sky Energy, Inc.
Blue Sky Energy is the trusted, off-grid solar solutions provider with manufacturing operations in the U.S. They offer the largest collection of small, Military Standard-certified MPPT charge controllers, pairing dynamic solutions with unsurpassed quality and reliability. Fifteen years after introducing the first MPPT product to the clean energy community, Blue Sky Energy maintains its commitment to excellence in personalized customer service, philanthropy, and international relations with distribution to over 33 countries worldwide. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. Visit us online at http://www.blueskyenergyinc.com.
For more RVing articles and tips take a look at my Healthy RV Lifestyle website, where you will also find my ebooks: BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands (PDF or Kindle), 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang for your RV Lifestyle Buck (PDF or Kindle), and Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts (PDF or Kindle), and my newest, The RV Lifestyle: Reflections of Life on the Road (Kindle reader version). NOTE: Use the Kindle version to read on iPad and iPhone or any device that has the free Kindle reader app.