I'm a rookie at this so only know about Lake Havasu area.

Many of our friends have 5th wheel or motor homes. For a variety of reasons, we decided it wasn't for us, so we tried renting a fully furnished home where all you need to do is bring your clothes and toothbrush. Figure around a thousand / month for something like that during the winter months. 50 inch RZR fits nicely in the box of a long box pickup and gave us a place to tow our boat. Once there, we had the pickup to launch the boat with and for UTV excursions out of town, the pickup worked to haul the RZR. In some ways, hauling it on the pickup is nicer than having to deal with a trailer. Biggest downfall to our plan was using the extended cab, long box pickup as our daily driver for shopping, sightseeing, etc. Pickup is really miserable to park in lots designed for cars.

As things worked out, we discovered we were natural born snow birds and LHC is just exactly what we wanted in a winter retreat so we'll spend winters there for the rest of our lives, as long as our health permits. It may not for everyone, but for us, buying a newer, modest home penciled out a lot better than .2% interest the money was earning at the bank. Having permanent quarters also allowed us to solve the clumsy pickup problem. Really nice used cars are plentiful at garage and estate sales and they're cheap, cheap, cheap.

That's what is working for us.

We love the lake, love the desert, and love the fact that lots of residents are healthy and retired so can take off any time to do something without needing to punch a time clock or schedule time off to do something important like enjoy life with new friends. It's also nice to be surrounded by a circle of friends who are done with the rat race and see no reason to try and impress anyone.

Life is short, live it to the fullest. It has an expiration date!