Taft & Corpus Christi, Texas

Winter 2023/2024 we decided to go on a road trip from Canada through the USA all the way down to Mexico, to go stay in the Ajijic area. This trip would be around 40 plus hours of driving alone, not including fuel or bathroom breaks. We decided to break up the drive and get some camping in along the way down to Mexico.

The United States has so many unique National and State parks to camp. We started doing some research on which State is warmest at night in December for tent camping. We had decided it was best to put the RV away again for another winter (fuel costs would be astronomical and if something broke it could get costly quickly). That's when we settled on the big state of Texas.

We started watching some YouTube videos by just typing in "Tent Camping Texas" and started watching all the different adventures. From people with children and pets in trailers, RVing, tent camping, 4X4 etc there are a lot of different videos and opinions. There were also a few videos on free camping places in Texas, however it was not far enough south for it to be warm enough at night (possibility of below 0 degrees did not jump out at either of us). We figured out we had to get further south than Austin, Texas to get the weather we wanted but even then it was no guarantee.

We ended up finding a site called HipCamping.com, which brought us to Taft, Texas just outside of Corpus Christi. We ended up staying on a ranch called "Freedom Harvest Ranch '', it is a cute organic ranch just outside of Taft. It took us 31 hours of driving to get there. We did this drive in just over a day and a half by swapping out drivers and taking a quick power nap at a rest stop for 3 hours.

Coming into Taft, Texas.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

We were greeted by the owner Aislynn, a very nice down to earth young woman who showed us her ranch and where we would be staying. She had a few different sites, we were located in her backyard next to the fire pit. Camping is not for everyone, booking this location we had a nice bathroom and access to electricity however no showers.

We set up and went to explore Taft, Texas which is a Main Street town with a highway that runs through it. It's a blink and miss kind of place, you are not finding it unless you are specifically looking for it. We had stopped earlier for a stretch, bathroom break and to fill the cooler, so we didn't have to go find a grocery store (which they didn't seem to have). We really just needed some beers then planned on a low key kind of evening (exhausted from the drive), we planned to do more exploring the next day.

Sunset on our camp site in Taft, Texas.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

Aislynn told us about her chickens, ducks, pigs and warned that there are two LongHorn Bulls in the back pasture that are currently acting like "teenage boys'. Don’t go into the pasture. They will chase you and their horn span is longer than your arm span. The "teenage boys" we figured out meant, there are other cows in the field beside her property and bulls are hopping the fence to see the ladies.

I have never seen a Long Horn bull in person, until now and HOLY MOLY those are big boys! We saw the smaller bull first and his horns were large. Then the big boy came into view, walking with his head going side to side as he wandered towards us due to the weight of his horns. The span at the base of their horns was bigger than my head, it was impressive.

Sunset on the bulls.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

It did get quite cool at night the first night around 4C and the second night around 6C, we did pack an extension cord, small space heater along with heavier blankets needless to say we were glad we had them. With one full free day we got up and went into Corpus Christi the next morning.

Corpus Christi was about a 45 minute drive on the Gulf of Mexico coast, where you get on a free ferry over to an island. The ride on the ferry was less than 5 minutes and floating across in the truck was really cool and we saw dolphins play in the water. We followed the deckhand's advice and turned left at the gas station as soon as we got off the ferry and drove down the street straight onto the beach.

Corpus Christi has over 70 miles of white sand beaches that connect to Padre Island National Park and Mustang Island, which you can drive down and camp overnight on for free. There were a few trailers, RV and tent pitched along the side of the road as we drove down along with people fishing and families playing on the beach.

Driving the beach.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

We did this for about an hour then headed into the downtown section of Corpus Christi, for lunch and to check out the USS Lexington WWII aircraft carrier. We went down the road to the USS Lexington WWII ship, known as the "Blue Ghost" and was also used in the filming of Pearl Harbour. There is now a museum on board you can go through, we did not go through it as it looked rather busy when we were there.

USS Lexington, Corpus Christi.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

We knew our next day was going to be a travel day to Laredo, closer to the border before we would cross into Mexico. We didn't have a plan and haven't booked our next camping site. After watching the waves for a bit on the beach we returned back to Taft to Freedom Harvest Ranch to do a bit of research and figure out where we would stay next.

Cheers!

**Please note that all opinions and views expressed in this post are my own, from my own experiences. If you would like to see more pictures follow me on Instagram vikki.gray **