What are your priorities?
For Florida Snowbirds how do you go about choosing a site where you will be bound to, for months at a time. You can assume safety, warmth, and cleanliness is a priority, but what else is it that yo...
Forum Discussion
We're coming up on our forth snowbird season. The first year we hit about 8 different areas of Florida, including the Keys over a 6-7 week period. It was fun to check out different campgrounds, staying about 3-4 nights per park.
I did research prior to going to FL that first time mostly using RV Park Reviews.com as well as this forum. I listed about 35 parks that looked interesting. Obviously we didn't get to all of them, but enough to get the idea of what we were looking for.
The second year we went for a longer time period and checked out a few more parks, but kept coming back to the one we preferred. First it was one month, then two months last year, and this season we will do three months at the same place.
Much of it boiled down to the comfort feeling we had with the park we liked most. And when I say "comfort" that's really an individual thing that may not translate the same for everyone. The park environment as well as the warmth we felt from meeting other residents made us feel welcome. We didn't care for the "subdivision" style park and opted for that state park feel with lots of trees, plants, and some privacy at the various sites we stayed at while there.
Now that we've spent months in our favored park we have some people we call real friends. I played in the golf league, mostly last season, and really got to know a lot of different people. My wife does aerobics and has also met several friends. Having a few drinks with the neighbors leads to meeting more people. I can't wait to go back this season. We miss our family and friends up here in Michigan, but we'll be back in the spring.
BTW, we stay at Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park in Crystal River. It's cooler than south FL, but while we like warm weather we don't really care for hot weather. It's not really beachy along the Nature Coast, but we have a pool and there's plenty of other water activities and biking in the area. Cool nights, warm days, good seafood in the area, and a more rural-small town atmosphere is more to our liking.
I did research prior to going to FL that first time mostly using RV Park Reviews.com as well as this forum. I listed about 35 parks that looked interesting. Obviously we didn't get to all of them, but enough to get the idea of what we were looking for.
The second year we went for a longer time period and checked out a few more parks, but kept coming back to the one we preferred. First it was one month, then two months last year, and this season we will do three months at the same place.
Much of it boiled down to the comfort feeling we had with the park we liked most. And when I say "comfort" that's really an individual thing that may not translate the same for everyone. The park environment as well as the warmth we felt from meeting other residents made us feel welcome. We didn't care for the "subdivision" style park and opted for that state park feel with lots of trees, plants, and some privacy at the various sites we stayed at while there.
Now that we've spent months in our favored park we have some people we call real friends. I played in the golf league, mostly last season, and really got to know a lot of different people. My wife does aerobics and has also met several friends. Having a few drinks with the neighbors leads to meeting more people. I can't wait to go back this season. We miss our family and friends up here in Michigan, but we'll be back in the spring.
BTW, we stay at Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park in Crystal River. It's cooler than south FL, but while we like warm weather we don't really care for hot weather. It's not really beachy along the Nature Coast, but we have a pool and there's plenty of other water activities and biking in the area. Cool nights, warm days, good seafood in the area, and a more rural-small town atmosphere is more to our liking.
