The Shady Dell

Begun in 1927 as trailer and camping spaces for weary travelers it has transformed into a kind of vintage monument and remembrance of times gone by. 

Situated a mile high up the Mule Mountains, in Bisbee, Arizona, (a historic copper mining town) the Shady Dell is home to nine vintage travel trailers. Among them are a 1949 Airstream, a 1950 Spartan Manor and a 33-foot Royal Mansion built in 1951 complete with “leopard carpet, martini glasses, diner-style breakfast booth and phonograph with a collection of 78rpm records.” A particularly popular trailer is the “1947 Tiki Bus Polynesian Palace, complete with hand-carved outrigger bar and your own tiki god.” 

Perfect in every vintage detail, the “vintage radios play era-appropriate radio programs, televisions only broadcast in two colors, period books and magazines allow for even more mental time travel and big-band, early rhythm-and-blues and original rock-and-roll are available for your listening entertainment.”

All the trailers are available for overnight stays, but book well in advance as the trailers fill up many months ahead of time. The trailers range in price from $87 to $145 a night.