It's Great to RV at the Balloon Fiesta!

When we first decided to come to the balloon fiesta, we started calling around for a place to camp.  We found that most RV Parks double their prices during the balloon fiesta, and most of the parks within 50 miles were already booked full even at the higher prices.  Then we found out that there are more than a thousand RV spots offered through the balloon fiesta.   Divided among several different areas, these spots are within walking distance of the launch field, and in the picture above you can see that they also provide a view of the Sandia Mountains.

If we look the opposite direction, we can see (and smell) the cereal factory.  As you can see from the picture above, there is a multi-story factory to the left.  It smelled like someone was always baking cookies, but we came to find out it was the cereal of the day being baked.  Mark liked the Fruity Pebbles smell and his cereal consumption went up while we were parked here.

The picture above shows the cereal factory on the left, and two of the dozens of balloon landings we saw in the grassy area within our RV parking area.  This used to be the old launch field, and now they left this open area for easy landings.  Our pilot friend, Tom, told us that they love to land here because they know there are thousands of RVers close by that are happy to help with the landing process.

If we didn't want to walk to the launch field, most days the wind would blow the balloons right over our parking spot.  We parked in the boondocking area, so we had no hook-ups.  But at $30 per night, it's the cheapest place in town.  There were also businesses that would fill your tank with water, or pump out holding tanks for a fee.  There are plenty of boondocking sites, but we booked ours and paid in advance.

The boondocking sites around the open field were reserved by organized groups.  For example, the Escapees RV has a Boomers group that had 51 members camping together in those coveted sites for two weeks.  Also, the Roadtrek RVs were having a rally, and their small units were lined up on another side of the landing field.  We saw lines of Monaco motorhomes that were parked together, so many groups use the balloon fiesta as a gathering place.

But the most noticeable group had to be the Airstream trailers.  They had a huge section reserved right beside the main launch field.  This picture is of one of the many rows of shiny silver trailers that were parked together.

Their view of the launch field the day before the activities began was awesome.

And the balloons were still low to the ground as they floated over their parking area.   
We arrived on Friday, one day before the fiesta began, and we followed a group of 8 Airstreams through Albuquerque.  We were glad to have that day to set up and walk around the launch area before it filled with people.  This was the view of the deserted vendor area on Friday afternoon:

It was a little different than the view on Saturday when 100,000 people invaded the space.

There are other options for RV parking that will definitely take early reservations.  For $150 per night, we could have stayed in one of the full hook-up sites on the hill over-looking the launch field.  Even at that price, we heard that they would sell out as soon as the reservation system opens for next year.  There were also electric and water sites available just a couple rows from us, but they were already booked up when we checked.  But we were quite comfortable in our no hook-ups section.  With our big tanks and generator, we could have stayed for more than a week, so we were very comfortable for four days.

We would definitely recommend staying at the Fiesta RV parks while attending the balloon fiesta.  It was great not to have to fight the parking and traffic hassles of the area to get to the fiesta.  There are free shuttle buses running continually from the RV parking spots that let passengers off right at the fiesta gate.  We usually walked just to get more exercise.  We were parked on row 25, so we had to walk about a half-mile to get to the RV parking entrance.  Then it was another half-mile walk from there to the fiesta gate.  That was a good warm up walk for us on the cool mornings.  Afterwards, we always had views of the balloons still in the air as we walked back to the motor home.

The only down-side we found was that the traffic made it hard to leave or come back to our RV parking spot if we drove the car to other parts of Albuquerque.  They close Alameda Drive during busy times of the fiesta, and the only entrance to our parking area was off Alameda.  The only other bad part to parking so close would be the distractions involved when sweeping off the awnings.  It would be easy to fall right off our motor home with those hot air balloons right over head.

We were so glad that the private parks further away were already booked, because we really enjoyed our stay at the Fiesta campground!