When Scott Swanson and his mother, Sandy Catalana, acquired a fixer upper campground in Gila Bend, Ariz., four years ago, they knew it had potential as an affordable winter park for snowbirds.
So they joined the Kampgrounds of America Inc. (KOA) network to put the park on the travelers’ map and started making improvements to bring their 130-site campground up to KOA standards.
What they didn’t expect, however, was that they would be able to transform their campground into one of the top KOAs in the country North America, according to Swanson.
“We’re ranked No. 5 out of 517 KOAs, so that places us in the top 1%,” Swanson said, noting that the rankings are determined by surveys that KOA’s corporate headquarters sends out to every guest. “The rankings are not necessarily about the location, it’s about the operators and the experience they’re providing for their guests.”
Swanson partly credits his success in Gila Bend to his continual investments in improvements, which include a new heated swimming pool; a new 2,500-square-foot veranda, with a fireplace and seating outside his recreation hall; and a 1,500-square-foot restroom/shower building with a dog wash station, as well as gated dog walk areas for social and non-social dogs, complete with doggy waste bags and hand sanitizers.
The Gila Bend KOA also features unique campsites, including three 150-foot-long pull-through sites, two of which have their own fenced dog runs called PEThouse Suites. The campground also has four tent sites, including an elevated Americans with Disabilities (ADA) compliant tent site that is designed to accommodate tent campers in wheelchairs.
Swanson’s latest improvement projects include chip sealing some roads with a blacktop mix to keep the dust down and reduce noise as people drive through the park.
“We’re also putting in fresh gravel and new landscaping,” he said. “The goal is to not see any desert dirt on the ground. It’s going to be gravel and rock.”
Swanson is also installing two-foot-by-two-foot concrete pads around many of the park’s sewer connections.
“Our goal is to have all of our sites with new spigots, sewer, gravel and landscaping before our 2020-2021 season,” he explained.
All of this is a dramatic change for the Gila Bend park, which Swanson and Catalana purchased in 2015 when it was a largely undeveloped campground known as Augie’s Quail Trail RV Park.
Snowbirds and overnight travelers like the improvements, and Gila Bend KOA’s business continues to grow, according to Swanson.
“I have 79 snowbird sites that are already booked for the winter,” Swanson said, adding that he already has a waiting list of additional snowbirds who want to spend the winter at his park.
But Swanson won’t give all of his sites away to snowbirds because of strong demand for campsites from overnight travelers.
“We’re getting 20 to 40 RVs per night during the snowbird season. That’s a lot of overnight traffic,” he said.
Gila Bend sits alongside Interstate 8, which carries thousands of travelers each week who make their way from Phoenix and Tucson to San Diego, Calif. Gila Bend also straddles State Route 85, which carries travelers across the Sonora Desert to Mexico, crossing the historic Tohono O’Odham Indian Reservation.
While many travelers are passing through, snowbirds like the affordability of spending the winter in Gila Bend, while still having access to major stores and restaurants less than an hour away in Phoenix. Many of Swanson’s winter guests also bring their Razer UTVs and other ATVs, and spend the winter exploring the back roads and historical sites near Gila Bend, such as the original Native American travel routes, the Juan Bautista de Anza Historic Trail, the Southern Emigrant Trail, the route used by the Mormon Battalion, and the historic Butterfield Trail, he said.
The town of Gila Bend is also making some investments to increase tourism by planning improvements to the Gatlin archeological site, which features remnants of native Hohokam farmers who lived in the area between 800 and 1,200 A.D. The site, a registered National Historic Landmark, is owned by the town of Gila Bend.
Other nearby attractions include the historic copper mining town of Ajo, 46 miles to the South, and the Gillespie Bridge, a historic 1,660-foot long bridge, built in 1927, that crosses the Gila River roughly 23 miles north of Gila Bend. Another scenic area, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, is roughly 79 miles south of town.
For more information about the Gila Bend KOA, visit www.gbkoa.com/camp/gila-bend.
