Florida is KILLING ME $$$$$

[olustee bus]

Stop by Ocean Pond Campground in Olustee Fl. East of lake city. Nice little place. Visit the Olustee Battlefield museum. Train station if it is open. That pretty much does it!

Great place to paddle if you have something.

[USMCRET]

We have traditionally gone to FL for a few weeks in the winter, but this year we decided to try AZ instead. I now have a complete understanding of why FL is as expensive as it is.

[Indy Glenn]

We are spending our first winter in Florida.

Knowing a lot of the east coast and mid west, not to mention our Canadian neighbors travel to Florida, we decided we wanted to be Snowbirds, not vacationers. This means we did not need the tourist attractions, beaches, big shopping centers, and traffic.

This meant the coasts, and the Keys were not on the list of some place to say, mainly because of cost. We looked at central SW Florida as we did want warm weather in the 70s & 80s.

We wanted a park that had some activities, pool, and shopping close by (Wal-Mart). We want to stay put, not travel. Have a base camp for when we did want to use the car and be tourists.

We discovered LaBelle, FL. 30 miles east of Ft Myers. If we want the beach, it is a 35 minute ride along with all the shopping centers, tourist attractions, and traffic.

It works for us - when we do drive west to Ft Myers - we can't wait to get back out into the country.

Lake Okeechobee and the east coast of FLA is a little farther drive if you want but still close.

Next year we will be staying at Oak Grove RV Resort - a new park in LaBelle, FL. Their web site is: Oak Grove Rv Resort - Rv Parks, Rv Sites, Park Model Homes

Here is a review I wrote for RV Park Reviews:
Oak Grove RV Resort (55+ park) - LaBelle, FL - RV Park Reviews

Good luck - - I hope you find a great place to stay...there are a lot of choices to stay in Florida!

g

[wayno347]

Only the infirm, the crazies, and those from New Jersey go south to Florida. Traffic congestion is a joke, inflated rates at RV parks, but no charge for fire ants.
It is Super Bowl Sunday as I write this and today's high is forecast to reach 76 degrees, light winds and humidity hovering around 12 percent.
Won't say where 'cause we don't need to be transformed into another Florida.
Try the Texas coast between McAllen and Brownsville...lots of RV parks down there.

[Jimbow]

The Rio Grande Valley of Texas still has room for a few more. Get a name tag, list of senior specials, and enjoy your winter.

[bruce91]

Originally Posted by momdoc

It is not as bleak as you make it out. We just got done spending 6 weeks in Florida and stayed at state parks, which are come of the best in the country.

We live just a few miles south of Daytona Beach and have done most but not all of our camping in Fl. state parks. Once a year we go to the Keys. This year i got lucky to get site #24 in Bahia Honda (my favorite) facing the ocean on 10/23 - 11//8 planning that 11 month out reservation window. Any site you could ever get for 2 weeks in Bahia you can fit in is worth booking. Once i got that i then looked to fill in a few more weeks around that with John Pennekamp (great kayaking, snorkeling and fishing), then Long Key and Curry Hammock. We always stop for a few days at Johanthan Dickinson in Hobe Sound a 3 hr drive from home as not wanting to do a 8+hr drive to get to the Keys. Our summer trips are all reserved for this year. This can be done with planning and some luck.

I like the keys BUT Key West is way to busy especially if a cruise ship is in. That said we always make 1 day trip there for the DW to window shop on Duval street.

Other Fl. state parks we enjoy are, Anastasia in St. Augustine, Gamble Rogers in Ormond Beach, Lake Lousia in Clermont, Manatee in Chiefland, Wekiwa Springs in Apopka, Paynes Prairie in Micanopy, Prairie has Bison, wild horses and allot of gators to see).

You need to look at reserver america for the keys state parks 11 monts out, look often usually Sunday mornings BEFORE 8am as thats when they are refreshed and then get lucky. We have been there in August, yea hot but not that bad as ocean breeze and it's no hotter than home.

Originally Posted by momdoc

is also the benefit of being a Florida resident and over 65. You then get a 50% discount. So some of our outstanding sites were $14-16 a night.

Yes the 50% off makes for more weeks/months away enjoying everything.

[pcurt23]

Originally Posted by Jimbow

The Rio Grande Valley of Texas still has room for a few more. Get a name tag, list of senior specials, and enjoy your winter.

Texas is the opposite of Florida. In Texas you are actually welcomed by the community. Unfortunately, it is not as warm in Southern Texas as it is in Southern Florida.

The area between Punta Gorda and Ft Myers has decent weather and we stay there. It is very crowded but reasonable in cost. The locals are not very welcoming. We prefer Texas but it is too far to go in Winter. We really liked Yuma but that is even further.

[Jimbow]

I lived on the border for twenty years in South Texas. We do embrace our visitors from the north and south. Beinvenidos!

[scharfm]

We are going on an "expedition", as I call it, to see what FL has to offer during the month of March. We will be covering most of the Gulf Coast from Key West north to Clearwater. After spending the month of March in Tucson the past several years, we miss the beach and water. I'm hopeful that we will learn a lot we can share in the future and decide if the beach is worth the $$$ and traffic pains. Maybe it will be back to AZ and TX on the way, idk. Here is where we made reservations (about two months ago):

Sunshine Key RV Resort, Big Pine Key, FL
Point of View RV Resort, Key Largo
Everglades NP, Flamingo
Woodsmoke Camping Resort, Ft. Myers
Timberlane, Bradenton (thanks smlranger for the earlier comment on Timberlane)
Bickley RV Park, Seminole

This will be a 5 week trip. They all look like pretty good places, considering we made reservations late and our first choices were booked in many cases. Thanks for any comments anyone has on these parks or locations.

[firedoc]

Originally Posted by USMCRET

We have traditionally gone to FL for a few weeks in the winter, but this year we decided to try AZ instead. I now have a complete understanding of why FL is as expensive as it is.

Ahhh, don't like the desert experience? It's different!

[Dr4Film]

It had gotten so expensive to stay at Beverly Beach Camptown Resort so I ended up purchasing a beach house 2 blocks off the beach to stay at for the winter months. Then we use the coach to get out of dodge when it gets too hot and humid.

The mortgage on the house was way cheaper than the monthly rent at the campground.

That money is now going into my pocket plus the equity instead of feeding it to someone else.

Dr4Film ----- Richard

[scharfm]

We liked Tucson a lot. We just missed FL. We spent about 12 spring breaks at Indian Rocks Beach when the kids were little. We probably will end up alternating winter months between the southeast and the southwest.

[azpete]

if you think florida is expensive, you haven't been to maine. every sentence there, ends with an invoice. there is a lot of seashore between florida and maine.
there is a lot of seashore between florida and texas. if you want waterfront, you pay for it. small town campgrounds, county,state parks are much cheaper. if the area has an attraction, stay a few miles away. a short drive saves a lot of dollars.
if you aren't having fun, you are not spending enough money.
my wife and i have put on way over 600,00 miles on three motor homes,and four trucks in the last 18 years.
my dodge dakota was retired with 367,000 miles on it.
my second motor home had 289,000 miles on it.
i work for hwh corp, and go where im needed.. if im needed in idaho, or florida, i load the motor home or truck, and go. the tornados, blizzards, sandstorms, floods and other things take up the other 10 percent. btw, i love my job.

[smlranger]

Originally Posted by scharfm

We are going on an "expedition", as I call it, to see what FL has to offer during the month of March. We will be covering most of the Gulf Coast from Key West north to Clearwater. After spending the month of March in Tucson the past several years, we miss the beach and water. I'm hopeful that we will learn a lot we can share in the future and decide if the beach is worth the $$$ and traffic pains. Maybe it will be back to AZ and TX on the way, idk. Here is where we made reservations (about two months ago):

Sunshine Key RV Resort, Big Pine Key, FL
Point of View RV Resort, Key Largo
Everglades NP, Flamingo
Woodsmoke Camping Resort, Ft. Myers
Timberlane, Bradenton (thanks smlranger for the earlier comment on Timberlane)
Bickley RV Park, Seminole

This will be a 5 week trip. They all look like pretty good places, considering we made reservations late and our first choices were booked in many cases. Thanks for any comments anyone has on these parks or locations.

We left Timberlane this AM headed to Myrtle Beach. I wish I had waited longer before posting my review of the place on RVParkReviews.

It has some pluses....mostly that it is not that expensive. We paid $47 per night. I think that includes electric for the first month. If you stay longer than 30 days, they then read the meter and add electric.

It was fairly quiet in spite of traffic on nearby I-75 and Florida SR 64. The sites are spaced well. The folks running the place are friendly enough.

In addition to the issue of not allowing us to bring our dogs to the only shelter during the tornado warning, I found a few other issues odd. They only have the one building that serves as the office, community room, laundry and the outdoor pool is there. There are two bathrooms but they have no showers. There is an outside shower at the pool. They close up that building every day at 5pm and you cannot access the pool, bathrooms or the laundry after that. I just found it strange for an RV 'resort' to not have any showers or set up to give their customers access to a rest room or the laundry after they close the office. I did hear some complaints about that.

The sites are all dirt with some grass. Mostly dirt and in spite of our best efforts, we were constantly tracking that wet, sandy dirt in the coach. Also, there were no tables of any kind at the sites. Just this past week, they had some (maybe 20) picnic tables delivered. They placed them here and there. Some sites got them, most did not.

They have two run off ponds. Both were pretty low (they told us they had little rain this past summer and fall). The water was pretty stagnant. They have an irrigation system that waters trees and some grass every AM and it uses water from those ponds. So, every morning we could really smell the stagnant water while they irrigated.

The place opened in 2015 so maybe they plan to continue to do upgrades.