StL to Ft Pickens

[garmp]

Leaving St Louis Feb 21 and headed to Fort Pickens. Thinking of a 6 hour drive the first day (this is our max) to Fulton Recreation Area, MS then a 4 hr to Service, AL Rec Area, another COE park and then finally a 3 hr trip to Ft Pickens. Object is to escape the cold.
Any one know of another or shorter route that has open campgrounds that time of year. We're not big fans of private parks, but for a night over and the right price we could survive.
DW wants to leave the 22 with only one night over, but I think that's pushing it. Any suggestions?
Any and all help is appreciated.

[CharlesinGA]

Google shows that the drive from Fulton to Service Campground at Coffeeville, AL on the Tombigbee River, is 20 miles further but 20 minutes shorter by backtracking a few miles into Tupelo and taking US45/Alt45 to Coffeeville. About 232 miles.

From Coffeeville to Ft Pickens is only 150+ miles and less than three hours. Not sure why you want to throw an extra stop in there.

I guess they got the road back in service into Ft Pickens, as the closing alerts have been removed from the NPS.gov and recreation.gov websites. They are soliciting for bids for a ferry service, I suppose as a backup.

If you only want to do one night on the road, the exact half way point would be Persimmon Hill Rec Area on Enid Lake off of I-55, exit 233. I used Chesterfield mall as a starting point and this is 360 miles from there, and 360 more to Ft Pickens.

https://www.recreation.gov/camping/persimmon-hillenid-lake/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&...

This is in NW Mississippi between Batesville and Grenada.

My tolerance is 500 miles a day give or take a few, and this worked well for me on my trip out to the Black Hills. Only issue is in Feb you don't have the daylight as long and it could be getting dark by the time you make the campsite.

If you are willing to spend a second night on the road, but want to be closer to FL, is the Magnolia Branch Wildlife Reserve and Campground. operated by the Creek Indian Tribe, it is located off of State 113 a few miles south of the exit 69 interchange on I-65.

http://www.magnoliabranch.com/

https://goo.gl/maps/W3JQscebUaq

Bear in mind, I have never been to either of these campgrounds, but may consider the one at Magnolia Branch sometime.

Charles

[DannyA]

Just me but I would only have one nights stop.

[Limit4]

This is what we do going to Destin from Festus. First night we stop at Sardis ms. and stay at Oak Creek COE. The campground is next to John Kyle State Park which is fine also. They are 8 miles off I55. Night 2 we stay at Paul B Johnson State Park 8 miles south of Hattiesburg and then on to Destin. This is not the shortest route but works best for us. 98 is 4 lane now all the way to mobile. If I remember right Service COE is sort of in the middle of nowhere but nice. Have a good trip, stay warm till then, pretty tough right now. Oh feel free to private message me if you have any questions about my comment.