Luxury Cabins and RV's the Latest Vacation Trend

Originally Vacationers had to deal with soaring gas prices. Since gas prices have gone down tremendously you would think Vacationers would get a break. Now the current financial dilemma Vacationers face is the failing economy. Regardless of what the financial state is, it still doesn’t hinder the desire to take a few days and get away from it all. Here are some the recent travel trends that travelers are doing to cope with the crunch:

Resort Campgrounds – that have luxury furnished cabins that have amenities such as: fitness centers, free Wi-Fi, arcade games, laundry service, hot showers, running electricity and beautiful landscaping.

Recreational Vehicles (RV’s) — these rolling homes on wheels come with complete showers, beds and kitchens for total comfort.

Mini Rolling Tent Campers - a smaller version of the RV that can be towed by an SUV or pickup truck. (a little less expensive than the traditional RV’s)

Many families are packing their clothes and enjoying the Cabin stays which are equipped with pools and other recreational activities and equipment. The cost of dining out on a vacation is cut in half by purchasing groceries ahead and preparing them in the campground’s communal kitchens. RV’s and Cabin type vacations have proven to be far cheaper than the traditional vacation that involves air flight, hotel stay along with other travel related expenses. Everything needed on these Resort Campgrounds for a fraction of the normal vacation cost.

Sedona Arizona

We stayed at Cedars Resort for under $100 a night in Sedona. The Drive down 89-Alt (89A) from Flagstaff through the Coconino National Forest is just breathtaking, it is one of the most amazing and naturally beautiful places in the world. The red striped mountains push up through rows of pine forest and look simply amazing against the bright blue sky.

We hiked up Cathedral Rock, which is home to one of the four mythical energy "Vortexes" in the area. These Vortexes are points in the earth where the planets energy are supposedly more concentrated and spring form the earth. Sedona is home to four such areas and the spots have been revered for hundreds of years, first by the Native American (Apache, Hopi, and Navajoe) people and now by the thousands of new age types and nature lovers.

The hike up Cathedral rock is pretty strenuous, it varies from level trails to almost 70 degree angle climbing to reach the highest point. The view from the top is just amazing, we stayed up there for over an hour, met some interesting locals and took in the 360 degree views of Sedona. The pictures and video just can not even come close to being there, its defintily worth a stop if you are in Arizona.

Meteor Crater Arizona

Stop by and see the worlds first identified meteor crater just south of Holbrook, Arizona. The crater is about a mile wide and 600 feet deep! It's $15 to get into the museum and access to the crater, the one hour walking tour around part of the rim is excellent, in fact if your not going to do the guided tour, its probably not worth just going into the museum.

Aliens! in Roswell, New Mexico

Roswell, New Mexico - UFO's and Aliens

Just spent a great day in Roswell, New Mexico - visited the UFO museum and a bunch of great shops. The best one was Alien Zone / Area 51 on 216 N. Main Street - just a block down from the UFO museum. It had great toys, and all the T-shirts are original artwork drawn by the Owner of the store. They have the best T-Shirts by far, and they are very resonably priced at $14 each. You can't get these designs at any of the other local shops.


The Alien Zone gift shop also have a real cool Area 51 room (modest $2 entry fee) where you can take photos posed with aliens in many cool settings. Our favorite was the anti-gravity room (see photo). You can see more of the photos on our Flicker Page. They don't have a website yet but they have the best prices of any of the many UFO gift shops around Central Ave.

Another really cool shop worth mentioning is Gifts from the Angles, (directions) which sell eclectic gifts and jewelry, lots of crystals, silver pentagrams, faries, and a great collection of collectible figures and farie gift cards. The owner is very cool and we had a great conversation. Lots of neat frogs and new age stuff. One cool thing was a The Guiding Light Angel board which is a Ouija board for Angels!

Roswell is a great little town and lots of fun. The UFO museum itself is fairly interesting, it has a lot of newspaper clippings, official US Government Documents about the protocal for dealing with EBE's (extreterestrial biological entities) and several other cool exhibits. Unless you are really interested in a lot of reading the avidavids of witnesses and several other documents related to the UFO crash that was reported in the Roswell newspaper in July of 1947, you probably wont want to spend too much time there, its very interesting but not real exciting and kids would probably get bored pretty quick - although a few of the children that were there were actually spending quite a bit of time reading the extensive exhibits from cover ups, to surgically removed implants! There are also some pretty neat photos of real UFO's and Hoaxes (by real I mean the photos have been examined and deemed authentic photos of objects that could not be identified, what they actually are is anyones guess...).

Lodging/Hotels in Roswell, NM
In Roswell we stayed at the Days Inn on Central Ave just a mile or so past the UFO museum. The Marriot was over $120/night and the Days Inn was only about $140 for two nights (with the AAA discount). The rooms are very nice and clean, free HBO, new appliances: microwave, fridge. Much newer and cleaner than the Carlsbad Inn. These rates probably increase during the summer and during the UFO conventions (One coming up on March 24th)

Carlsbad Caverns
Overall its a definite must stop for any cross country roadtrip and its only about an hour north of Carlsbad, NM which is the closest town to Carlsbad Caverns. The caverns and the National Park are incredibly beautiful. The mountins and sheer rock cliffs along the drive to the caverns enterance offer plenty of breathtaking photo opportunites. The Cavern itself is just plain awesome. We just caught the last self-guided tour at 2PM (so get there early) and the hike through the upper cavern is about an hour, deep down into the earth and is filled with countless amazing natural rock formations. The trail is paved, but it does get pretty steep (almost all downhill) and wet - you definitly need a flashlight as the cave has a lot of internal lighting but much of the path is very dark and the flashlight came in handy.

After the hour hike in through the cavern you reach the elevators and a underground giftshop and bathrooms. From there you can tour another hour long path through the "grat room" which has so many incredible formations and variety of stalagmites and stalagties, as well as other bizzare formations, plenty of great photo opportunities but you will need to use your cameras night-shot setting and use a tripod or find a steady place to allow for the long exposures required. Believe me its well worth it! we got some AMAZING photos in the great room which are on our carlsbad caverns flickr page.

Carlsbad, New Mexico Hotels

We stayed at the Carlsbad Inn and got a great deal, only $55 and the rooms were a little older than the Best Western down the road ($100/night) but the staff was very friendly and helpful, and the rooms have microwaves and refridgerators as well as free HBO. The fixtures, furniture and appliances are pretty old but all in working condition and it's a decent room for the price.

Hot Springs Arkansas - The Arlington Hotel

Hot Springs, AR - The Arlington Hotel

We stayed two nights in The Arlington which is a grand old hotel situated in the heart of Hot Springs. The hotel has been there for over a hundred years and is a remarkable building that really transports you back to the elegance of pre world-war two lodging.

From the Arlingtons website:
"The colorful history of the three eras of Arlington hotels is not architectural beauty and uniqueness alone. Always the center of activities in Hot Springs, the Arlington has hosted hundreds of grand balls and social events since 1875. Politicians, dignitaries, actors, gangsters and entertainment and sports legends bathed in our bath house, danced to our music and enjoyed our splendor and charm. The Arlington has survived a devastating fire, economic downturns, changing social attitudes and much more. Steeped in history, The Arlington is truly a legend. "

We got a great rate, I think it was about $90 a night. Its situated right across the street from the Hot Springs Mountain (and essentially right in the middle of Hot Springs National Park, which carved out a path for the city).

Hot Springs Mountain and Observation Tower

The first morning we took the short hike up to the top of the mountain and checked out the viewing tower and the trails which have one of the only public natural hot spring fountains, the spring trickles out of the mountain about 20 feet up the mountain and ends in the park.

We checked in on Thursday, friday was a little more (maybe $10?) expensive, but well worth it. The same Saturday we hiked, we also explored Central Avenue and found some great resturants. The Loco Burrito and Angle's Italian Restaurant both of which are on Central Avenue and bot of which were excellent. Angle's was crowded for dinner but we only had about a 20 minute wait and the food was excellent. The Loco burrito serves a GIANT and delicious burrito that runs about $7 but is more than a meal, they also have some excellent huevos rancheros.

Al Capone, Gambling, Art
The town has some rich gangster heritage, as well as a pretty sordid past (which in some parts of town, like where Central turns into Park Ave - they still have some crime problems in that part of town, so avoid staying there if possible, even though the Frommers guide might recommend it for a cheap stay). The city has a great vibe in the evening with lots of live music and bars and restaurants. We were lucky enough to be there on a gallery night and there were several art galleries open, some of which featured some very cool young artists, along with the more main stream fare.


Hot Springs is a great stop for a cross country trip as its just about 4 hours southwest of Memphis, TN.

Walking in Memphis.. to Graceland!

We hit Memphis about 4:30 on thursday and just made the last (5PM) tour of Graceland, got to see where Elvis lived and about a million gold records. I recommend you get the entire package deal which lets you into Elvis's car museum and lets you see his private full size jet the Lisa Marie (pictured)!

Ok thats enough for now, we are about to crash - we drove into Carlsbad, New Mexico this evening all the way from Dallas. We are going to go spelunking tomorrow in Carlsbad Caverns - should be some amazing caves to explore.

Flickr photo space for Roadtrip photos

We have created a flickr account to share our photos from the road - only a few up there today but we will be adding many more soon (hopefully tonight when we stop in Texas)



We are heading out of the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas this morning, will give a full review in our next post.