PecanGroveEntrance

This past weekend we had the wonderful and exciting privilege of staying at Pecan Grove RV Park. This RV park is number one on our list of places we want to live long term, so we had to try and get a temporary space in the park to be sure we liked it. So, on a whim I called the park to see if they had any openings for 4th of July weekend, fully expecting them to say no. Well, as luck happened, they did have a spot, and we spent three nights in this eclectic RV park in downtown Austin.

This park doesn’t offer much in way of amenities, their is no pool, no playground for the kids, and no internet to speak of. What the park does offer makes up for what it lacks. The park is conveniently located in downtown Austin on Barton Springs road. This puts you close to pretty much anything you could possibly want from Austin.

PecanGroveResident

You have instant access to Town Lake Trail, and jogging distance to the entrance of The Greenbelt, you are also waking distance to Barton Springs Pool, Zilker Park, and a plethora of local eateries. The park is also walking distance to the new Trader Joes, so your need to drive anywhere is pretty much eliminated by the proximity of so many great things, including Austin festivals such as ACL.

The park was very eclectic. There were really old RV’s, tiny two person RV’s,  Airstreams, and HUGE behemoth RV’s that are almost the size of a single wide mobile home. The park was very quiet, and everybody we encountered seemed very friendly. The park also felt very safe, and even though it was right off Barton Springs, road noise never once bothered us.

PecanGroveDrive

This park is definitely number one on our list to live in long term, but with rumored waiting lists years long, we doubt we will get in, but we do plan on doing our best to get our name added to the list, but you can tell from looking around the park that most everybody has been there a LONG time.

Here is our list of pro’s and con’s about the park:

Pro’s

  • Walking distance to pretty much anything you could want in austin: parks, swimming, trails, restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops, etc.
  • Quick and easy access to the two major highways going through Austin.
  • Lots and lots of shade. It’s located in an old Pecan Grove, which means it will likely never be touched by developers due to Austin’s tree ordinance.
  • Affordable rates. The nightly rates are fair at $40 per night, and monthly rates are cheap as well, $390 per month (if you can get in).
  • Laundry facilities are only $2 per load (washing and drying). So far we have paid as much as $3.50 per load.
  • Friendly locals, and a safe community
  • This park IS Austin. Very eclectic, which can be seen in the wide variety of RV’s
  • Great location to host small intimate get togethers with friends

 

Con’s

  • The location! I only list it here as a partial con. One could spend a lot of pocket change visiting coffee shops, and restaurants too frequently, the convenience is just too hard to get over.
  • Very tight spaces. Even our pull through site required some backing in to get our rig in the right place, but the advantage of this is you are guaranteed shade, no matter what spot you are assigned.
  • The on site bathroom facilities are not air conditioned or heated, and are not very clean; but the longer we have lived in our RV the less desire we have even had for using the on site bathroom facilities.
  • Permanent residents are required to do their own landscaping, which mans you have to find a way to store some lawn equipment. Several full-timers did have zeroscaping though which would certainly eliminate some need for yard work. About the only thing you would have to worry about is raking leaves in the fall.
  • No internet to speak of. Even though they say they have a wireless internet connection, we never once got it to work during our three night stay.
  • LTE network didn’t work with our cell phones. This could have been because we were directly under a set of power lines, or just our general location in the park, but switching to 4G did the trick.
  • TightSpace

    The space we had was a pull through, but ended up being a tight fit. We just barely were able to open our slid out.

As you can see, we have very little beef with this park. Any con we do have is made up for ten fold by the long list of pros. If you are ever coming to Austin, this is the place you want to park your rig, but due to popularity you should probably book way in advance, especially during festivals and events.

FamilyPecanGrove