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Retiring to Camp Verde, AZ: The Hidden Gem No One Talks About

[00:00:00] If you are thinking about retiring to Northern Arizona, there's a small town that doesn't always get a lot of attention, and that's Camp Verde. And honestly, for some people it does end up being exactly what they're looking for. It's quieter there and a little more spread out, a little more grounded, I would say.

You're still in the Verde Valley, so you're close to places like Cottonwood and Sedona. But when you're actually in Camp Verde, it feels different, slower, less busy. And for a lot of people that I work with, especially those coming from the Midwest, that shift is something that's a right fit for them. But it's not the right fit for everyone.

So in this video I wanna walk you through what it's actually like to live here day to day. Not just what you see online, but what you experience once you're here. Because the goal isn't just [00:01:00] to find a house. It's to find a place that really fits the life you are moving into. Well, hello. Hello. We are continuing on our little journey here with me telling you more about.

Living in, or what it's like in Camp Verde now. Just wanna say, we kind of did the little intros. We're gonna talk about what it would be actually like living here in Camp Verde, it's, it's so different from most of the other area because it's green. There's a lot of underground water, so that's one of the first things I noticed when I came here was the green, how green it is.

When you're coming on I 17, and you're coming from Phoenix and you're going up north, and you come up over the hill and you look down and the Verde Valley, camp Verde is like right in front of you. It's so green, you just go, huh. And, and it's green year round, but it's greener when we have monsoons. It's just gorgeous.

So [00:02:00] please keep that in mind. Camp Verde is small. It's less than 12,000 people, so it is small. And the nice thing about that is is that means compared to Cottonwood, Sedona, for sure. You are going to be able to find yourself a much larger, more affordable home on a much larger piece of land if that's something you're looking for, as well as there is land there that has irrigation.

There's underground, like I said, underground rivers, and so there's the opportunity, not every place, but there are lots and pieces of land where you can actually flood your yard. Water a couple times a week, and people actually have beautiful lawns down there. It's crazy. They have massive trees, beautiful lawns.

It's very, very different from Sedona and Cottonwood in that way. Just the amount of water and green that they have available to them, things that really appeal to me, [00:03:00] especially coming from the Midwest, which a lot of my, you know, a lot of you are, is it's quiet. It's rural. There's more land, there's more space.

It's affordable. When I say rural, it means you can have horses and cows and goats. I love baby goats, so if you have goats, let me know. You can have chickens, you can have roosters, you can have bunnies. You can have all of these animals, horses, all of that. Did I say horses? Okay, so you can have horses and a ranch.

I mean, people have. Animals. Animals, a lot more farm animals. That's the word I'm looking for. I'm sure there's pigs down there too. I just didn't think to mention them. Sorry. Not. Not ignoring new low pigs. Just being outdoors. It's natural to just be outdoors. You walk around your neighborhood, you walk around your property, it's cooler in the winter.

It's a little warmer than Cottonwood, but we'll come to that. Stop that, Judy. We're not gonna talk about that. It's. [00:04:00] About 3,100 feet above sea level, so it's a little higher, but lower than Flagstaff, higher than Phoenix, so very temperate, seasonal. It has four seasons, just like you know. That's what we love about the Verde Valley.

It has four seasons, occasionally gets snow, and it has just this more slower rural pace. If you're not into that and you're coming from the city and you're used to the nightlife and all of the, you know, activities in the nighttime, this is not for you. But most of my retirees are not looking for wild nightlife.

We're looking for quiet. We're looking for peaceful. We're looking for where we can breathe. 'cause there's not much pollution here. It's, it's just, you feel. You can breathe here is the best way I can put it. There's a less traffic so it doesn't feel crowded. You don't have the tourism that you would have in [00:05:00] Sedona.

There's just a lot of outdoor activities that you can do. Looking at my little list, I don't forget all the goodies for you guys and dark sky communities. So at night you can look up and you can see the most amazing constellations. The night skies here are. Amazing. Amazing. And I, I love the night Skies. I love looking at the stars.

I wish I could remember all the constellations from my astronomy class, but unfortunately I was asleep through most of it. it was dark, it was quiet. I fell asleep. What can I say? So if you're looking for, you know, a place to retire that has elbow room that has peace and quiet, ah. Sorry, lost my train of thought there.

'cause I was just trying to look at my notes to remember not to miss any of the good stuff. 'cause there are so many good things about Camp Verde and it really is more like where I grew up. 'cause I grew up in the middle of nowhere in [00:06:00] Minnesota, a town of 700 people and Camp Verde kind has that feel to it.

There's really no shopping. There's, there's a Bashas' grocery store. Which is where you can get groceries. You know, if you can't make it into Cottonwood for grocery shopping, you can run in there. There's an Ace hardware for just sort of quick things you need for home improvements or whatever. There's enough to get by until you can get into the big town, which is Cottonwood.

So if, if you don't mind driving 20 minutes to get those things, it's a great place to live because it's quiet, it, it's. It's just so low key. It's beautiful. There's so much to do outside. There's hiking, of course. That's me talking about my hiking. Again. There's kayaking. There's rivers and streams and things where you can actually swim, do tubing, [00:07:00] fishing.

Kayaking, do all the water things that we're used to from the Midwest. They have campgrounds all over the place, so if you have friends and family coming to visit and you don't want them to stay with you or they have their own RV or something, there's a lot of really great places that they can camp an rv.

It also has a lot of vineyards. Vineyards. So there's, you know, wine tastings kind of a thing where the Verde Valley, where it's just perfect weather for vines and so there's places to go. Wine tasting, there is the casino, if you are interested in the casino. There's the, oh, what's it called? Oh, I forgot what it's called.

A castle. Sorry. Got my papers mixed up. I don't go to the casino, so I don't remember the name of it. I know that sounds terrible. Which is not so terrible. I work hard for my money. I ain't just giving it away by pulling. No, you don't even get to pull the thing anymore. It's pushing a button. Sorry, derailed there for a minute.

Just [00:08:00] bear with me. So it's just a very different lifestyle than obviously Sedona, which is very touristy and all artsy and culture and theater and you know, it's. More about nature. And so there's, you know, local farms, there's local produce, there is a lot of farm to table going on, which is great. There aren't a lot of restaurants.

There's the Astoria, which is very good. And next to that is an antique store that I really like. And then there's a Mexican restaurant down there that's very good. Then there's an Italian restaurant there that's really good. I can't remember the name of either of those. Isn't that terrible? I know where they are, so I just go, but I'll, I'll post 'em below so you, you'll know which restaurants.

The Italian restaurant is a little more spendy. It's kind of an elegant place to go for an anniversary, a birthday, you know, some kind of a celebration. You would go there more so than your evening meal. There's a lot of kind of fun [00:09:00] things to do outside. If you are like, you know, let's go do something this weekend besides, you know, just hanging around the farm.

You can go to Fossil Creek, which has beautiful turquoise water, and people go there. There's camping areas there. There's the Verde River. Again, like I said, for kayaking and fishing, there's a T ving if you're into doing that side byside and that type of thing. And then there's just a lot of canyons and wilderness areas to get out and hike.

It's not all real challenging Hiking's. Um, you know, some of it's very easy, so those type of outdoor activities you can do. And then there's also Out Of Africa, which is fun. I went to Out Of Africa with my family, and even in May it was way too hot to be walking and we did not bring enough water. So my recommendation is take the full zoo bus tour.

And the reason I say that is because it's hot. There's a [00:10:00] lot of area to cover. And when you're on the bus tour, the animals come to the bus 'cause they know they're gonna get treats and then they tell you more about the animals. And I like to know as much as possible about the animals. I learned things just because we happened to be at the fence when the bus came by and I got to hear about hyenas and things.

I had no clue about hyenas. And they're actually a pretty cool animal. So I would definitely recommend taking the bus tour through the whole park. Because it's big. It's a lot of walking and it gets very hot. Then they also have the zip line there. So please check out the zip line if you wanna be adventurous.

It zip lines over the animals. They call it the predator zip line. So you could be a tasty treat if you fell, God forbid. So other things to do would be Montezuma's Castle. Montezuma's Castle is all about cliff dwellings. Native Americans who were cliff dwellers [00:11:00] and they built their homes into the cliffs of the Camp Verde area, and they also did irrigation and raised gardens and things.

So there's a ton of information there. I highly recommend checking it out. If you're in really good shape, you're gonna enjoy it. If you're not in great shape, it's gonna be challenging. I know. 'cause the first time I went, there was a lot of walking and a lot of steps and I just was. It was killing me. I went again and I was in much better shape and I enjoyed it a lot more.

There's also the Fort Verde State Historical Park, and they do reenactment with local volunteers from time to time, so that's a really fun place to go to learn about the history of the trappers and people that came here initially, military, all of that. And then there's the Verde Valley Architectural.

Center and that talks about the Native American history because obviously the Native Americans lived here long before we did. [00:12:00] And I think it's great that we are honoring their history and their culture in that way. So there are those other things to do that are not their historical. And if you like history like I do, those are great things to do.

I love that stuff. I'm the person who's gonna be at the history museum reading everything. I read it all I wanna know. And other people are like, they look at it and they move on and I'm sorry, you can't look at a history exhibit and understand history. I'm sorry. Sorry. Derailed again. We talked about vineyards already.

There is a lot of. It's really fun wine tasting you can do here. They have the buses you can get on and they'll go from one winery to another tasting, so you don't have to worry about designated drivers. There's so many things to do that are not the typical, touristy, kind bi tchotchkes that you're never gonna look at again, and you're gonna care and [00:13:00] they're gonna end up in the junk.

This is like. Making memories, things you're gonna hang on to, you're gonna share with your family, you're gonna show your grandchildren you're gonna really enjoy and you're gonna wanna go back to more than once. So that's kind of that part of it. And just in general, some limitations are there's the immediate care facility and a few clinics.

Not a whole lot of options medically. So if you do need medical services, emergency medical, you're not gonna find that in Camp Verde. There's not a, there's no industry, there's no big businesses, none of that. It's truly a rural town. They have. A grocery store. They have an Ace Hardware store. They have a few, couple, two, three restaurants that I consider sit down dinner restaurants, a lot of fast food restaurants, which I don't recommend, but that's just me.

But the cool part is the prices there for homes are phenomenal. You can buy a house with land, a beautiful home [00:14:00] with land in Camp Verde for less than half of what you'd pay if you were in Sedona. Less than half. Beautiful area. Again, remember lots of underground water, so it's easy to grow things. You are gonna have lots of green, it's to me, if you want rural living, camp Verde is the place to be.

Totally. The place to be. You've got the Verde River, you've got the Montezuma's Castle, you've got the wineries, you've got Fort Verde. You've got. Cliff Castle Casino. See, I remember it. It came back to me. And if any of that, plus having the ability to have just that rural feel, I know you don't have to have any farm animals.

You can just have that lovely rural feel. The beautiful night skies, peace and quiet. As we say here, we roll up the sidewalks at five o'clock and sometimes we don't roll 'em out at all on Sundays and Mondays, just so you know. So. A lot of times I get a question from people saying, [00:15:00] well, what's the difference really overall between Camp Verde and Cottonwood?

Because they're close, but they are so different. So different. I'm gonna break that down. In my next video I'm gonna talk about comparing Cottonwood and Camp Verde so you can get a little better idea of maybe which one would be a better fit for you, and obviously. Click the Relocation Glide Guide the relocation guide below, and DM me comment.

Please let me know what you'd like to know more about the area. I am doing this for you. I want you to be very confident and very happy about your choice if you choose to come and live here in Sedona, Cottonwood or the Verde Valley.