still thinking about the south

Yesterday I talked about challenges and how I need some teeny tiny challenges to help keep me motivated and looking forward to the next trip. And the challenges I'm talking about are truly teeny and tiny. You won't hear me talking about hiking the Appalachian Trail, or learning to skydive. I'm just talking about small challenges that we face in everyday living that become less and less challenging the longer we stay in one spot.

So when I started thinking about going to the South, which I've been planning to do ever since I started full timing, the deeper I looked into it the more troublesome it became. There were indications that it may be more expensive than living in the West, and even more troublesome was my initial research was showing that its not all that easy to find a place to live in the South. Boondocking is a lot less prevalent and RV parks tend to be more full, so I started having second thoughts.

My biggest concern when I'm traveling is breaking down on the road. And I think it would be safe to say that breakdowns are a lot of folks biggest concern. But right below that concern, the next most important thing to me is.... Will I be able to find a place to stay. And that to me is a biggie.

For those of you that follow my blog you already know that I really don't like to make reservations at RV parks, feeling that a reservation puts me on a schedule and takes away my freedom to come and go as I please. Traveling out West I have found that I can almost always travel freely and find a place to stay without reservations, which is helped of course by me preferring to boondock.

But in the South things appeared to be different. RV parks seem to be more crowded, and making reservations seemed to be the normal way of doing business. So right off the bat there was a major challenge there that I wasn't sure I wanted to accept.

Giving it a lot of thought I believe I've come to grips with the possibility of having to make reservations and still managing to have an acceptable experience traveling in the South, but I'm still having trouble with the thought of living elbow to awning with a bunch of RVs for more than a couple of days at a time.

I know there will be state parks, Corps of Engineers campgrounds [ COE ], and other government type campgrounds around. But these places generally don't have weekly or monthly rates and their daily rates can add up pretty quick to be higher than a weekly or monthly rate at an RV Park. But despite that right now I'm teetering towards going to the South for this winter. And I'm still researching how I will live if I decide to do that.

So far my very tentative plans are to spend a month in the Greenville South Carolina area, a month in South Georgia, and a month somewhere in Florida, but no further south than Orlando. When I leave the South I'll probably leave on Interstate 10 and spend a week or so in LA. [ lower Alabama ].

When I'm in those areas for a month I'm planning on taking minivacations with my tent to the surrounding areas and do things and go places that would be difficult with the Arctic Fox.

All that is the way I'm feeling right now, but since I won't be leaving Denver until late September early October I've got plenty of time to change my mind and my plans, and it wouldn't be the first time.

    theboondork