Vanlife Life Lite? Four Months of House Living in Florida

By Perri

Our time in Florida is coming to an end. All told, we’ve been here FOUR months. Most of the time, we’ve spent living the “house life” and helping some family members through a challenging time.

We haven’t been exploring much these days. But, as we prepare to move on, we thought we’d update the blog and share some of the things we have been doing during our stay in the Sunshine State.

Establishing a New “Home Base”

Arriving in Florida, we had a dilemma. We needed to be close to our family here, but we were not able to stay with them. This meant either: stealthing and urban boondocking as we did last year, or trying something new.

Stealth, suburban sprawl, tropical heat and elderly dogs aren’t a great mix. So we chose something new. And we were lucky to find a homeshare with a lovely lady in Dunedin, only a few minutes away from our folks.

You might think it was a relief to hang up the wheels and live the (comparatively) luxurious “house life”, but Dan and I have been missing our van shenanigans something fierce. The way we do it, life on the road is engaging at a visceral level. Nearly every day we are outside, exploring, problem solving, working at meeting basic needs that people in houses take for granted.

With van living, there’s less free time, less comfort, less ease. But, it makes us feel so ALIVE. We can’t wait to get back at it.

Milo, though, is a suburban dog at heart. There’s nothing he loves more than a nice wide sidewalk and the smells of his doggy neighbors.

Our place is within a mile of the Gulf of Mexico, a wonderful library, a Planet Fitness (we just so happen to have a membership) and a gazillion restaurants and microbreweries. Unfortunately, we’re using up a chunk of our “disposable” income on rent, so these things are a little less accessible than they used to be.

“Renting” has been an eye-opening experience. Our heavily-discounted house-share bill is barely affordable with our single income. We wonder how people do it alone or manage to raise children while paying rent and working. It put us in mind of our own childrearing years, when we commuted to teaching jobs far from home, throwing half our income into childcare and the other half into our mortgage. (Yikes, right?)

Turns out that, for us, van life is not only more exciting and engaging, but it is far more economical too.

There are positives to “house-life”. After a many-year hiatus, I’ve re-engaged with fiction writing, and Dan built two new cupboards in the van. We reorganized and donated a bunch of unneeded items we were carrying around with us. AND got an awesome birthday present: an ARC 180 Awning from Roam Adventure Company. We can’t wait to use this puppy!

We volunteered at the Florida State Parks and joined the local library system. I jumped into a local writing group, and took pottery classes. We changed our state residency and established relationships within a the gigantic Florida healthcare industry.

Best of all, we’ve shared lots of unstructured time with our Florida family.

We wouldn’t take any of it back.

Buuuut, we do miss our life on the road, and plan to be back at it in a few weeks. How long will we live in our 77 square foot low top econoline van? It’s a question we get all the time. The answer: Until we don’t want to anymore.

Florida Adventures

Somehow, we managed only two van camping trips in the four months we’ve been in Florida. This is in contrast to last year, when we were boondocking in the Tampa Bay area and off to a new part of the state almost every week. (House living is too comfy, see what I mean?)

Below we’ll document the places we did explore. As always, we hope the information will help you plan your own crazy/brave adventures.

Exploring in a Southeasterly Direction

Our first trip was Southeast of our home base in the Tampa Bay area. Last year, we visited Bear Island, in the Big Cypress Wildlife Refuge, and we remembered the wild beauty of this region. So we returned to Big Cypress to check out some of its other campgrounds.

Our first stop was Burns Lake Campground. To tell the truth, this one was a little underwhelming. Sites surrounded a small, narrow lake. We set up on the primitive side, affording a view of the lake…. and a row of RVs right across the narrow strip of water. There were trails here, but due to unseasonable rains, they were more water than earth, and we didn’t get to check them out.

The next day, we explored the quaint Chocoloskee Island which was mostly residential, but surrounded by wild swampy water stretching out into the Gulf of Mexico. We wished we could have kayaked there. It would have been an amazing experience: The area is teeming with birds, alligators, and other wildlife. But it was too hot to leave Milo behind in the van and, though he’s learned a few new tricks, this old dog wasn’t up for tippy water travel.

We settled for a delicious lunch of Cuban sandwiches and local shrimp at the tropical HavAnnA Cafe and headed further east. On the way, took a quick detour to check out a local boondocking spot on ioverlander outside of Everglades City. It looked pretty good, but we wanted to spread out for a few days so we decided to press on.

We spent the next few nights at Mitchell’s Landing Campground. This spot was down a long, lovely shell gravel road through the Big Cypress Swamp. The campground itself was forested, with an airboat ramp (used by locals) and a couple of pit toilets. We spent a few days here.

From Mitchell’s landing, we explored Shark Valley area of Everglades National Park, which was beautiful, crowded and packed with wildlife. We also took a few smaller, less crowded hikes along the loop road. This was a wonderful respite: remote-ish and wild, though– as with all of Florida in Winter– it was not uncrowded.

Suddenly short on time, we zoomed through Miami Beach and stayed overnight at a welcoming and delicious Harvest Host bistro in a busy area along the coast. In the morning, met some old friends for brunch and headed back to the Gulf Coast.

On our way back “home”, we stopped at Manatee Park near Fort Myers to stretch our legs. Bonus: we got to observe some manatees!

One of the more wonderful and strange parts of Florida is the routine interaction with wildlife: snakes, ibis, osprey, dolphins, manatees. They are all here… and all over the place!

One of the less wonderful parts of Florida is the traffic and congestion, which we got stuck in on our way back to our house-share. We were stuck for so long that Dan had to do a work-related zoom from the highway while I grit my teeth and drove us past one “Florida man” scene after another: accidents and arrests, even a plane crash on the highway. What a day!

Exploring in a Northeasterly Direction

Our second Florida van camping adventure took us North by Northeast. It was a birthday trip (mine!) and, though we didn’t plan it that way, we ended up revisiting a couple of our favorite spots from last winter.

Our first stop was Shell Mound Campground outside of Cedar Key. This area was rained on pretty hard before we arrived and it was soggy and buggier than we remembered. Also, while we were off on other adventures out west, a hurricane took out some of the beaches and parks here. But even so, it was so nice to look out over miles of marsh and watch the tides.

We walked the trails and then went to Cedar Key for a birthday dinner of local clams and grouper sandwiches. Then we stopped by an awesome Tiki bar for some live music and a mojito. It was a lovely birthday.

The next day we pressed on, exploring the dirt roads of the Lower Suwannee Wildlife Refuge. Camping is not allowed here, but we hiked a bit. (Milo can only do “a bit” these days.)

Around mid-day, we decided to check out some local springs to the East. The spring we did get to see wasn’t our favorite: SPRING BREAK. Turns out all of March and April is “spring break” in Florida. The campgrounds in the area were mostly full… or didn’t take dogs.

We hiked along the Santa Fe River, and did a bit of fossil hunting. There was possible boondocking at the canoe put-in here (a spot that ioverlander reviewers said was “probably” alright for a night though not technically legal). But decided against it. We prefer to be outside the van, not stuck inside being stealthy.

So we drove another 45 minutes to a spot on Campendium, Gornto Springs County Park. We weren’t sure what to expect, it was waaaaaay away from more traveled parts of the state and we had to take a series of back roads to get to it. But this campground turned out to be a fabulous overnight spot. A couple locals camped nearby, and a bunch of canoe folks in tents. We tucked in right beside the Suannee River and cooked dinner. Just in time too, because it rained A LOT that night.

Unfortunately, I soon discovered that one of my (iconic!) yellow crocs had fled the van… probably at the Santa Fe River where I’d been wading around looking for fossils. Now, these crocs have both practical and sentimental value. They’ve been around since we packed our now-grown children into our long-gone minivan and drove across Newfoundland, when our family spent a week canoeing in Maine, on several cross country family road trips… Since forever ago basically.

So. the next day we packed up and headed back to the Santa Fe River, the last known location of my left croc. Amazingly, it was there on the gray Florida sand waiting for us. (Woohoo!)

Since we were deep into central Florida now, we decided to visit Gainesville and Micanopy. Gainesville had changed a lot since my time as a Gator: so much more of everything and more corporate, too. I guess that could be said for the whole state.

In Micanopy- which hadn’t changed much at all–we sat at a coffee shop and listened to a local band play bluegrass renditions of 70’s pop songs. “You’re So Vain” was stuck in my head for hours after. Is that a good thing? I am not so sure.

I guess we could have gone anywhere, but we headed back to another familiar place: Hopkins Prairie Campground in the Ocala National Forest. This is one of our hands-down favorite camp spots in Florida. It is a rare thing: a small, self-pay first-come first-serve forest service campground down a dirt and sand road.

There’s lots of privacy at Hopkins Prairie and few services (only a pit toilet). The Florida Trail runs right through the campground so there are many opportunities for hiking. Also, lots of wildlife and quiet.

We spent a lovely day under the live oaks listening to the barred owls hoot and the sandhill cranes squalk. Then it was back to our temporary home in busy Tampa Bay.

This time, we stopped at a microbrewery outside of Tampa to wait out the traffic. We are getting to be “real Floridians”, I guess. Check out Dan’s shirt!

Moving On

That, my friends, was a whirlwind tour of a very slow couple of months. Next, we’re heading North to tie up some loose ends in Massachusetts and visit friends and family. Then on to see our kids in Montreal and attend our son’s college graduation in Toronto. Haven’t decided on a route yet… and we have no idea where we’re headed after that. Just the way we like it.

Playing it by ear is one of the joys and challenges of van living. After four months in a house, we miss the “anything goes” feel of van travel, also the one pot meals, and waking up to a different scene out the window almost every day.

We truly appreciate all of you who travel along with us in our hearts and in our blog.