Florida to California
The result of almost 8 hours of planning. Getting things organized for our travel does take time and effort.
Our travels in our coach will take us south to Florida for three months and then over to California for two months. I’ve received feedback that in retirement, we should slow down and take our time. And that would be fine if we lived in the United States. We don’t and that limits how much time we have and where we choose to spend that time. Canadian snowbirds migrate south pretty quickly to escape the cold northern temperatures that hit in November and to maximize their time in the warmer climate areas.
We are going to take 11 days to cross from the Everglades Isle Motorcoach Resort in Florida to Desert Shores Resort in California. We will take in some beautiful resorts along the way including:
Two of them are not confirmed yet: Bay Lake and Maverick. Depending on what we hear back from them, we may have to find alternate spots. We had some other choices on our list but they were already sold out for our dates. We are doing most of our planning 6-9 months out.
This will be our longest drive to date in the coach. The drive to Florida, by comparison, is a relatively quick 6-day trip. And we have two layovers where we are staying two nights. Basically, 4 hours of driving a day to get down to Florida.
Going across to California proved challenging in terms of logistics. Admittedly, we were a bit selective in terms of the layover spots. We aren’t planning to use Walmarts.
For ideas, we used a new thread on the IRV2 Newmar forum on Class A parks, Big Rigs Best Bets, and RV Park Reviews.
Booking is quite the process. Some parks have good online booking arrangements but they don’t provide discounts for FMCA or Good Sam unless you call them. Others will only take bookings through the phone. We found that we were often leaving messages for callbacks. Some of the resorts were only interested in longer term stays and not overnight bookings. Some of the resort websites were really well done, others, awful.
All in all, it took way longer than expected to plan out this leg of our trip.
Kingston to Florida. Check.
Florida to California. Check.
California to Kingston. Well, not yet. Another full day to plan that trip.
Not sure how you want to return, but if going up I-15, consider LVM Resort in Las Vegas, Pony Express RV Resort near Salt Lake City, and Zion River Resort in Virgin, Utah.
We have a couple of options going back to Canada and I like the idea of going up the I-15. Great suggestions. Thank you!
We were thinking about making a stop at Hearthside on our way back. I think you’ve done this drive from Indio to Petoskey before.
Hope all is well. Might we see you in Indio?
Let us know when you will be in Indio and we will be sure to meet up with you. Looking forward to it!
If you’re planning a northern route to Petoskey, consider these resorts:
Elkhorn Ridge in Spearfish, SD
Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone, MT
West Glacier KOA in West Glacier MT (nicest KOA we’ve ever seen and Glacier is a beautiful park)
Cheyenne KOA in Wyoming — nothing really good in Wyoming, but at least this is convenient for overnight stay.
There’s also nothing really good in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but we have stayed at the Island Resort and Casino in Harris. Decent for a night’s stay. And I just saw a new place that looks quite nice, but I haven’t been there — Manistique Lakeshore Campground — https://manistiquelakeshorecampground.org
This is so helpful. Thank you!
We’ll be in Indio at Desert Shores for two months from February 16 through to April 16th. It will be great to see you again!