By Gail Marsh
“We’ve made a decision and we’re sticking to it.” This was the pronouncement my husband made when friends around the campfire talked about next year’s plans. For the past three years, we’ve returned to the same campground (CG). It’s in southern Florida, so we’re all but guaranteed nice, warm weather. We usually leave Missouri after Christmas and make the trek south in three or four days.
To sunshine and friends
During the past three years, we’ve met and made several friends. We’ve ridden motorcycles together and sampled the local restaurants’ food together, too. We shared stories and jokes around the campfire with people who have come to be almost like family. That’s one of the big benefits of returning to the same CG year after year. We look forward to seeing and being with our same “snowbird friends.”
Making the same campground our own
The campground managers know us by our first names. They are happy to “save” our preferred RV site year after year within the small park. During our time here, we helped re-side some of the CG’s cabins. We’ve painted and helped refurbish the interiors of some rental cabins, as well.
I guess you can say we’ve invested ourselves in this place. We even planted some flowers around the tree near our campsite. They’ve survived to welcome us back to this same space and campground each year. It’s part of what makes the place feel like home to me. We can easily find our way to the grocery stores and gas stations. We have established relationships with a local church, hair salons, and fresh produce stand workers. There’s a lot to like about returning to the same campground year after year.
Same campground? Not next year
Even with all of the good things about our campground, we’ve decided that next year we’ll explore a new-to-us area of the Sunshine State. We scouted out several CGs this past February while in Florida and decided on a place a little over an hour north of where we’ve stayed in previous years. Friends around the fire seemed surprised at my husband’s announcement. And maybe a bit disappointed, as well.
Before I succumbed to a sad sense of nostalgia, my husband quickly outlined some of the reasons for our decision. It wasn’t long before friends were smiling and making plans for places we might meet “in between both campgrounds.”
New places, new faces
Here are some of our reasons for choosing a different campground for next winter:
- Closer. Staying in our new location will shorten our drive by over an hour. This will mean we can make the trip with just two overnight stays instead of three. The shorter trip will make it easier to plan our departure around the inconsistent Midwest winter weather. We can put the money usually spent for that third campground toward fuel.
- Friends. We’ve enjoyed meeting and getting to know folks as we travel. We’re looking forward to making new acquaintances and friendships at our new campground, as well. The new RV park is larger. That means the potential for making friends is greater, too. At least we hope so.
- Exploring new places. After three years in south-central Florida, we’ve visited most of the parks and historical sites. Attending the local festivals has been great fun, too. Both my husband and I look forward to exploring a different area of the Sunshine State—the many lakes, streams, and springs will be so different from the sugar cane and cattle fields. Not necessarily better. Just new and different for us.
On down the road
As we left our RV park of the last three years, we wished a fond farewell to dear friends. It wasn’t “goodbye.” Rather: “See you on down the road.”
Do you vacation in the same campground year after year? What are your reasons for doing so? Please tell us in the comments below.
##RVT1183
I understand that the “new” park is bigger and in a location that offers you the opportunity to explore a new area but I don’t see how decreasing your travel time by 1 hour decreases your travel time by one day. Simply adding a 1/2 hour to your travel days would allow you to make the trip in 2 days. Hope you enjoy the new park and have safe travels.
That too baffled me about 1 more hour of travel meant another overnight spot on the road. As you said, a half hour added to each travel day would have eliminated that. I’m scratching my head on that one!
That 1/2 hour may make the day too long, or if already long, arrival after dark. Everybody has a limit, it’s good to recognize it and not try to do too much, and the limit tends to get lower as we age.
We volunteer for the national parks, and this is a quandary for us, too. Do we return to the same place, or do we seek out new adventures? There are advantages to both! This year, we added one new and returned to a previous place. Still deciding for next winter!
We too gave up a all inclusive park in Yuma, AZ, after five years. It was a tough situation after meeting so many nice folks, hosts and doing endless activities. Some folks, I still stay connected with via the emails, Facebook or messenger. Many I’ve found have given up the travel for various reasons also, or decided to go to a different park like us. It’s the same sun, just meeting new folks, doing different activities and starting a different routine. “Maybe we’ll pass each other in the future” or “I’ll show up on your door step some day”.
Three or four days to get from Missouri to Florida is crazy Gail. You’re missing so many opportunities and experiences along the way that it’s heartbreaking.
Bouncing between the house in Missouri to live in a seasonal trailer park in Florida year after year sounds painfully episodic. “Adjusting” the trip by an hour sounds like limiting movement is almost preferred.
Limit yourselves to hundred mile days, spend at least two days at each stop and enjoy that fuel you’re burning going from Point A to Point B. Don’t reserve spots like unyielding regimented dots on a map as if it’s an unwavering airline schedule but rather, plan just the next stop. Let it take weeks to get to Florida….
Vince, maybe a different word from ‘crazy’ might have been more polite. You know, to each their own. For my navigator and me, we do Saskatchewan to Yuma in four days. Yes, we miss some sights along the way but heading south after Christmas we rush south to get out of the cold and to weather where we can add water to the trailer. We’ve had freezing weather and snow as far south as St. George, Utah and found overnight freezing temps in Las Vegas. There’s pros and cons to everything we do.
I appreciate the feedback so let me try again – From my perspective, it strikes me as crazy to relegate one’s RV journey to the equivalent of a Greyhound bus trip.
Sure, if you absolutely, positively, unequivocally have to be somewhere on an inflexibly specific date, Point A to Point B makes sense to me. What doesn’t make sense though is putting in deadlines just to have something to be anxious over if one doesn’t have to.
In your case, getting chased by the frost line is controlled by the weather, not your appointment book so although your situation might be nuts, you might not be.
Again, from my perspective. Everyone has their preferences.
Safe travels to Yuma!
Hi Vince! “Everyone has their preferences”…you said it yourself…and that is what the article is asking…What is YOUR preference? It didn’t ask you to “evaluate” what others do…just sayin
Thank you Kara.
I feel that if I just write, “I prefer not to use my RV for migrational transportation”, folks might not know what the heck I’m trying to say even though it’s my preference but absent context of perspective. But I understand your point.
To each their own id say but personally I agree more stops. We are in a 20ft travel trailer and we aren’t snowbirds but we camped in February and march 2020 going from the central coast of CA to the W, S, and eastern sierras, then to the Las Vegas area and from N to S in AZ and then back home. We camped in a snow blizzard accidentally and also in 80 degrees weather. We have found that as long as it’s above freezing in the day, if we have a heated hose and we keep water dripping, it’s fine for our tt. No leaks. We had many different experiences from hiking, biking, skiing, snowshoeing, swimming in mountains, deserts, rivers, lakes. Im from Sweden so I know cold/snow/ice etc. It was amazing!
I’m with you Impavid…the point of the article is to share your own experience…not to tell someone else what they should or should not be doing! We too have had to move fast to get out of freezing temps in order to get to our destination on the Gulf. And even then the weather sometimes has other plans. 😅
We decided not to return to our winter campground next year after eight years. It was a hard decision and not accepted well by some of our friends. Being open to change and accepting new experiences keeps a person young in spirit. Doing all you can for as long as you can is intentional.
My Daddy died in January last year. I have always been a Daddy’s girl, and always will be. It was such a blessing to be able to go back “home” to my campground family to start the healing process.Their love and support got me thru the worst time of life. I can’t imagine not going back “home” for a few months in the winter.
It was really a tough decision to move to a new seasonal CG this year after 7 years at the old CG. The previous CG was family owned and sold to a private investment group. We and many of our friends gave the new owners 2 years to get their feet under them. Prices went up and the CG continued to go down – by common consent, nearly our entire winter group bailed. We stay in touch and two other couples joined us at our new CG. So far so good! And we are not ‘stuck’ here. While in the south, we take the opportunity to be tourists in the region before we migrate north. Several of us own a big RV where we live for the winter and a smaller RV for those tourist trips.
Good decision Gail for the exact reasons your husband laid out. Too much to do and too many places to go in this beautiful land of ours to keep doing the same-old.
Years ago, we tested the waters on long-term snowbird stays by spending a month at one NM RV park in our fifth wheel and another winter staying a month in a rented park model in an AZ RV “resort”. We knew going in that we are “travelers”, not “campers”, but we wanted to see if we would enjoy joining some single-interest clubs and making new friends. We found that we still made a number of day trips and several multiple-night motel trips to other places while there. We decided that seasonal stays were not really our forte and haven’t done it in the last 5 years. Now we have a small motorhome, not a fiver and big truck, and move around between state-county parks/boondocking S of I-10 in winter
We spend the winter in a 40′ motorhome in a park in AZ. We come here every year partly because the monthly rent is reasonable compared to other parks in the area, and we have a waterfront site with an unobstructed view of the mountains beyond. But like Gail said, we want to see other places when in this area of the country. We don’t want to bounce around in various parks in a 40 footer (and we would lose our waterfront site), so we bought a used 21′ Class C motorhome so that we can take several side trips during our winter stay. We have already taken a 4 day side trip and have two more planned so far. This plan seems to be working well for us as we still have lots to see this winter.
We’ve been going to the same CG for 16 years – mostly weather and the vibe in the area, largely because of the friends we’ve made there although many of them are aging out. We have no plans to change although the CG management has changed and that has created more annoyances, it’s still worth the trip.
We are travelers. We have seldom stayed at a campground more than once. Different strokes …..
Thank you, Gail! I thought the primary reason was that the old and familiar campground was sold and the new winter-stay requirements did not work for you. In any case, the reasons given for the change are logical, reasonable. We return to the same campground semi-annually because of proximity to our old neighborhood and church. At some point the neighbors and former work-colleagues will be all gone and we’ll stop. Have a great weekend and safe travels!