Shore Looks Nice 
Fishing from the Deck while Ella Swims in Wine Country
Heading north up the West Coast from San Diego we made our next stop on our 6 month Border to Border trip in the Temecula area. This is a hot spot for RVers who want to enjoy Southern California in the winter! It has beautiful lakes, wine vineyards, and nearby the ocean! We stayed for 3 weeks and took countless day trips to explore the surrounding areas.
Diamond Valley Lake
This gorgeous lake is just up the road from Wilderness Lakes. This lake is key in providing water to 18 million people during droughts. It’s Southern California’s Largest Reservoir. It’s a no-contact lake so there’s no swimming. You can still enjoy boating, fishing, and hiking at this beautiful spot.
If you’re boating and need to go to the bathroom, you can just pull up to one of the floating Porta-Potty’s on the lake!
It has a nice Marina where you can rent a boat, get fishing supplies or get information at the office. There’s a nice hiking trail that goes all the way around the lake. I only saw one other person on the trail and he was a fisherman heading to his secret spot. He claimed that the fishing from the shore here was excellent and he’s been coming to the same spot for years.
Camping at Lake Perris
This is another lake in the area that has a great campground. This lake does allow swimming and is a hot spot for beach-goers. Almost all the campsites have fantastic views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. This campground gets packed on busy weekends so make sure you book it in advance.
If you bring your boat you can launch it here. But one of the big bonuses of Lake Perris is that they rent all different types of boats at the marina for VERY LOW rates. The fishing on this lake is fantastic. I know people who consistently pull monster Largemouth Bass out of this lake.
The beach is big and gets packed. They’ve got lifeguards on duty and sectioned off areas for safe swimming. Boaters love to pull up and pick up friends for spins around the lake.
The best spot to go on this lake is the island. It’s a huge piece of land in the middle of the lake where you can have a picnic, go hiking or just hang out.
Temecula Wine Country
With over 30 wineries, this micro-climate is a hot spot for RVers to visit during the winter months. The vineyards are gorgeous and there’s a lot of wine tour companies that will pick you up and take you to all the hot spots. Some of the local wineries have retail shops in Old Town Temecula.
Wilderness Lakes RV Resort
The Thousand Trails is a HUGE camping membership where you can (depending on your package) travel all over the country and stay at their resorts for FREE. We found out about the Thousand Trails years before we were RVers because they opened their resorts up to the public and we were looking for somewhere new to tent camp in Southern California. Danielle found it online and booked a weekend for us to stay at Wilderness Lakes. 
That night, in the hot tub we made some friends and the guy laughed at us for paying whatever the nightly rate was because he stays for FREE.
Being able to go all over the country and staying for FREE sounded intriguing so when we decided to RV we decided we better take a look into this. Another thing that was new to us was RV Resorts. We tent camped ALL THE TIME. It wasn’t uncommon in the spring, summer, and fall to be camping 8 out of 10 weekends. But we had never stayed at a camping “resort”. It’s like an entirely new world was opened up to us! I can be in great locations with countless adventure day trips and Danielle can have her amenities and resort style living. 
After a lot of research, we decided it was a no-brainer for us to become members and stay the majority of the time at Thousand Trails Resorts. Now that we’re full-timers we’ve been back to Wilderness Lakes numerous times and often reminisce about our first time here.
Fishing on the Toy Hauler Deck
Toy Haulers have exploded in popularity, and for good reason. One of the coolest things we’ve done with ours is pulling into the campsite, dropping the deck down and backing up over the water. The Wilderness Lakes RV Resort stocks the canals with 1,000 fish each month so I was able to throw out a line and relax on the deck while waiting for the big one.
The big one never came (or at least I wasn’t able to set the hook a few times I had bites) but my neighbor who was using cheap hot dogs to entice these beasts was catching his limit every day! Luckily the old saying about how if you don’t catch a fish you don’t get to eat didn’t apply and we pulled fish out of our freezer to grill up on the Road Warrior Deck.
Old Town Temecula
Old town is a great spot for people visiting the area to hang out. It’s so unique to find a big place with such a small town feel. It reminded me of Tombstone, AZ with the rustic outlaw look. There are FANTASTIC restaurants and good shops. We recommend parking and walking the length of the main street on both sides. Great exercise for the day and awesome people watching.
RV SnapPads 
While we were here our new SnapPads arrived! I had never owned Jack Pads before but knew the benefits and that some of the higher end Resorts require you to have pads. I also knew that Jack Pads can be a big pain and an extra step I wanted to avoid when setting up and taking down camp. So the SnapPads were the perfect solution because you put them on ONCE and then never have to think about them ever again.
Ella’s 1st Time Swimming 
Being an Entrepreneur has allowed us incredible Time Flexibility and Freedom. Not only being able to work where I want but when I want. So when Ella has her “first” moments, I’m able to be present and enjoy them. While we were here we took her swimming for the first time in the heated pool. Heated pools at the campground have been a big perk of full-time RVing.
We’ve Been Attacked
We had our first unwanted visitor to our RV, or maybe we were visiting him... Either way, it was an owl who loved to sit above the spot where we had to park our truck at the site. I’m sure he was doing a lot of good making sure the little mice weren’t running around the campground but he left a big mess on our truck!
Our neighbor was so sweet. He saw us continuously being attacked by this owl and felt bad so on the day I was packing up to leave he came out and cleaned our truck windows! Seriously it was one of the nicest random acts of kindness he could have done.
The Road Warrior RV Deck
Hands down the coolest thing in the RV Industry right now is the RV Decks. There are different variations of where and how these are built but having the option to relax on a deck in incredibly scenic areas is priceless.
Ella’s Loving the RV Life 
We get asked a lot what its like to RV with a baby. I think people forget that RVs have all the conveniences of home in the Road Warrior. Sure there will be certain trade-offs and it won’t be “the same” as being in a brick and mortar home, but we’ve found it to be easy to get into a routine and enjoy life with our Happy Little Camper!
It took a little while to design how we were going to switch up the layout which eventually led to Ella taking over the Toy Hauler as her room. I moved my office to the built-in desk near the fireplace.
Explore More
We’re big fans of staying active daily. We try to incorporate things we really enjoy like hiking, biking, surfing, etc into a daily routine but sometimes if it’s not convenient to head off to a crazy adventure, walking the RV Park can give you that exercise and be a blast to check out all the other rigs and their setups. The Thousand Trails RV Resorts have walking/hiking trails at all of their Resorts. It’s been a lot of fun to see how different the parks and trails are with a huge variety of landscapes and scenery.
So-Cal Surfing
You’ve got a huge variety of excellent beaches anywhere from 30 min to an hour away. From Oceanside to San Clemente.
So every chance I got I made sure to head out and enjoy the waves!
Hi there my name is Jodi. I like the video of Temecula area. My Sister-in-law lives near that area. I fell in love with Ocean Side when I was there for the first time. How long was it when you stayed at Wilderness lakes RV Resort. We have stayed once at a Thousand Trails Resort but we are not members. It was a way off road beaten path.
Thanks for sharing