Making the Best of It at Horseshoe Beach

If you were looking at a map of the Gulf Coast of Florida, and you saw a town labeled “Horseshoe Beach,” what would you expect it to be like? What images would come to your mind? If you, like me, were picturing a beautiful west Florida beach community, then noticed that there was a county park right along the water……

Swimming with Manatees

One of the many advantages of spending time with other people who travel full-time is finding out about places to see and things to do that we wouldn’t have known about otherwise. Swimming with manatees at Crystal River in Florida was one of these things for us. We met another family during our stay at Peace River who told us……

Boondocking at Flying Eagle Preserve

Once we had spent a few days in the Everglades without hook-ups, we were itching to further explore boondocking opportunities. Florida is a great place to do that, both because of weather and availability, so after a few days of resting and recharging back at Peace River, we chose a boondocking site near our next destination. What is boondocking? Definitions vary……

Exploring the Everglades

  The Everglades region in southern Florida is a place we’ve always wanted to visit. The nature and ecosystem of the southern tip of the Florida peninsula is so unique and important that most of the land area down there is protected by two national parks and a national preserve. We spent four nights in the area and were able……

Highlands Hammock State Park

Over and over again it happens: we pick a random park along our route to stop and camp so we can break up a long drive to our next destination. Usually we’ve never heard of it before and we don’t even research it much since we’re only staying for one night. We’re looking for a place to sleep that isn’t……

Disney Baby

In this third and final post about Disney World, I wanted to write a little more about visiting Disney with a baby. It was something that I was concerned about ahead of time and something that we’ve gotten a lot of questions about. I was concerned that it would be difficult to both meet his needs well and let the……

Our Disney Favorites

On our sixth and last day at Disney World, a sudden rain storm was the final factor and we left the park early (as in, around 6pm instead of 8 or even later). The lines were long and we were exhausted. Once we added wet to that list, it was time to go. We wanted to leave while the mood……

Disney World

Once we’d recovered a little from the Ftf Rally (though honestly, had we been to a rally before, we would have left more recovery time) it was finally time for Disney World. To thoroughly write about our week at Disney would take at least a half-dozen posts, but I’m going to see what I can do with two or three. The……

A Brief Tour in Tampa

Moving in the direction of Tallahassee, where we were headed to attend a Full-time Families Rally, our next stop was the Tampa area. We have two nearby Encore RV parks included in our Thousand Trails membership, and since neither had availability for all three nights we planned to stay there, we stayed in both. Largo Vacation Village in Largo, FL, is……

Of Mote and Myakka

One of the things that first drew us to this road-schooling lifestyle was the opportunity to teach our kids primarily through experiences – through touching, tasting, smelling, hearing and seeing firsthand, rather than just reading about it in a book or watching a video (though we still do those things too!) So even though we need to plan longer stops……

Peace River

One of the things we’re learning about a traveling lifestyle is pacing. When you’re on vacation, you usually want to see and do as much as you can before you head back to everyday life. The days are fun but intense and often we talk about needing to recover after a vacation. Even on our big trip in 2012, our……

Making the Most of the Space Coast

Spoiler Alert: We didn’t do anything related to NASA or space at all. The area around Titusville, Florida is often referred to as the Space Coast. It’s the home of Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. We saw both of these places from a distance, and at some point we’d really like to visit Kennedy Space Center (I imagine……

Choosing a Thousand Trails Membership

When we left Osceola National Forest we headed for Three Flags RV Campground in Wildwood, FL, which was our third stay in the Thousand Trails network. The longer we live this full-time traveling lifestyle, the more we realize that our preferred campground is more like what we left in Osceola – national/state/county parks and forests that may boast fewer amenities but……

Hunted by Helena

We have a “polar package” on our camper. If we compare it to our Swedish camper, it’s kind of a joke, but it does give us a little bit of protection in colder temperatures. It basically means the underbelly is enclosed and receives some heat from the heat system and water heater. But this is by no means a winter……