We were last in Phoenix in April 2003 for about 10 days. We had several reasons to be there, the most important was that we had to pick up our "toad" which we purchased through eBay a couple of weeks before (for more on that story, click here.)

Phoenix is currently one of the faster growing cities in the United States, which means that you can pretty much find anything you may want here, but also means that many gated housing developments and strip mall abound. It's also extremely spread out, so going from one place to another can easily be a 40 minute drive.

In the winter months the weather is just about perfect, and if you're into golf, I hear it's heaven.

There are lots of RV parks in the Phoenix area, so you may want to choose your location based on how close (a relative term here) it is to the sights you'd like to see. Not being too familiar with the area, we chose the Destiny Phoenix RV Resort located in Goodyear, AZ. There are six Destiny RV Resorts around the country, and we had good luck with the park in Las Vegas, so we decided to try our luck here as well.

The park itself was pretty nice. It's in the middle of nowhere though, which only matters if you don't have a car or don't want to commute everywhere. The spaces are good size and some have trees, always a plus. It was emptying out when we got there, all the "snowbirds" were heading north for the winter. There's a pool, laundry and a well stocked store.

The main drawback with this park is that it is a good 40-45 minutes from most everywhere we needed or wanted to be in the Phoenix area. This meant that we were doing a lot of driving, which probably could have been avoided if we had stayed at another location.

There are a couple of malls just north of Goodyear and they have most everything that you'd need. There's a Target, Walmart, Home Depot, drug stores, supermarkets and post office. There are also several chain restaurants including Cracker Barrel.

 

There's not much else to say about Goodyear, other than it got its name from the Goodyear Tire factory that used to be located there.

Scottsdale, AZ is about 40 minutes from Goodyear and there you'll find several high end malls, lots of spa resorts, and golf courses. If you have time, make the trek out to Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and architectural school (pictured above). Taliesin is an amazing place and the tours are incredibly informative and eye-opening.

Another must see spot is the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa, which was designed by a student of Wright's and features at least two restaurants and seven pools around the property. Have a drink or a meal here, the granola for breakfast is divine.

This was quite a challenge in the Phoenix area. There are a couple of hotels near the airport that have WIFI, and we had to make the trek out there a few times. The Destiny office has a dial up modem, but you'll have to wait in line to use it. We heard that most of the Destiny parks will be getting WIFI in the near future, so we may all be in luck soon enough.