RV parks offer a strange dichotomy in terms of location. The countrysides are filled with wonderfully-situated facilities in beautiful scenic "vacation" spots. But once you approach major cities, the campsites tend to be in crappy, rundown, semi-industrial areas. Of course, this is not universally true. Portland boasts a lovely little park on an island just across the river from Vancouver -- and the site we chose in Denver abuts an amazing greenbelt filled with more nature than you could shake a stick at. But in many parts of the country, the powers that be choose to put us with the truck stops and auto repair shops, the low-income housing and mobile homes.

Cities really should value their RV visitors a bit more. Full-timers pump just as much money into the economy as other permanent residents, and we are willing to pay a premium for a good spot (just look at the fees charged by some of the "resort" parks in Florida!) I grew up on the Gulf Coast, where all the prime beachfront real estate is set aside for condos and hotels and other tourist-related housing -- they could carve out a spot or two for the RVers! And what I wouldn't give for full hookups in the middle of Central Park -- alas, we're relegated to a patch of asphalt in Jersey every time we want to visit NYC.

It's hard to know if the park you're considering is in a good neighborhood -- especially if you've never visited that area before and are just looking at photos on the web. Remember that pictures can lie! It's all about the angle and composition of the shot, what they choose to include and choose to leave out. Your best bet is to get someone local to do a drive-by for you. We're quite glad we did that in Denver -- it turns out that our first choice (which looked nice enough on the web) would have put us in a crack-house neighborhood. Thank you Sandra and Paul for giving that one a big old "no" and suggesting our greenbelt park instead! If you don't have in-town peeps to turn to, consider making reservations at more than one park (of course, I'm only suggesting this if the place doesn't require a deposit and the reservation isn't binding). That way, you can eyeball your potential temporary home in person and give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down BEFORE checking in. And if it looks like a junkyard, at least you have another option.

You can also do a little research on your own in advance to root out any potential "issues" in your temporary neighborhood. While I'm not an alarmist, I do like to stay on top of all the scary stuff that's happening in my community (gotta love that culture of fear -- what would we do if we had nothing to be afraid of?) However, my community now changes from day to day -- so I have to check in at every new stop. For those of you who lay awake at night worrying about the state of the world, you'll enjoy these handy online resources. See how many nuclear warheads reside in your vicinity (8,000+ for us while staying in Denver -- that's what you get when you're next door to NORAD!) Or look up crime and pollution statistics for your city -- you can even find out if there is any brightly colored toxic waste being stored, dumped, or cleaned up in your area!

And then you've got the people... I always joke that the first thing I do when we land at a new park is check the National Sex Offenders Database website to see how many perverts we have in our neighborhood. I'm sort of kidding, but sort of not. If you live a stationary life, you usually have some idea who your neighbors are -- but when we're parked in a different spot every couple of months, it's a new set of folks every time. And while 100% of the people we've met at these parks (both travelers like us and permanent residents) have been lovely, gracious, generous people -- it's the ones you don't meet (because they are hiding inside their trailer molesting a small child) that you have to worry about! The most we ever had was in South Frisco -- five in our park and a dozen more in the surrounding area. Maybe the local authorities send all their peeping toms and exposers and fondlers to Colma (known as "Deadsville," full of cemeteries) -- assuming that they can't cause too much damage in a town with more corpses than live people (let's not even go there!)

Seriously, the people in these parks don't concern me -- they are all very nice. Neither Matt nor I has ever experienced any level of crime, theft, violence, or even weirdness during even one of our stays -- but when we lived in a house, our car was broken into right in our driveway, and they found a body in a ditch just down the street! In RV parks, we leave our patio "stuff" out all the time, and don't worry about anyone taking our bikes, grill, or camp chairs. We're perfectly comfortable leaving town for days at a time, knowing that our neighbors are all looking out for each other in a way that you can't even find in most regular communities these days. This is especially true in parks where the majority of RVers are retired -- they have nothing else to do all day but sit around and watch the world go by. These folks know who belongs in the park, who doesn't, and what's going on at all times. Our own personal geriatric security force!