Man! Time ‘effing flies! Five years ago, I was nearing the end of what ended up being my last tax season.

Back then I was working for a central Florida niche auditing and assurance firm. The deadline for corporate tax returns had just passed and most of the work was done for the season. We just needed to finish preparing individual tax returns for the owners of our corporate clients.

A few months before, “The Man” and I began talking about traveling in an RV. We liked to watch those RV shows on cable… you know the ones? I think they aired on GAC…

Anyway, they would interview families and depict them traveling in their huge Class-A buses. They would show them camping, in the most beautiful campgrounds. We would talk about how awesome it would be, to buy our own camper and travel full-time.

I love to research stuff and I LOVE WIKIPEDIA. “The man” and I’ll be watching something on TV and I’ll pull up google, just to start search something I saw on the show, or I’ll just google the show. Which always leads me down an information rabbit hole.

And not just one rabbit hole, but dozens. I usually end up spending the entire time reading about the show (or movie) instead of actually watching it.

So… where was I? Oh, right… Once we decided we wanted to travel, one of the first things we did was research the different camper styles – Class A’s, B’s, & C’s, toy haulers, fifth wheels, and travel trailers. Initially, “The Man” was only interested in travel trailers (they can be towed with smaller sized pickup trucks), but I wanted to look at fifth wheels too. He shot that down real quick.

However, one weekend we were at a dealer, near Tampa, and on a whim, he decided to look at one. He fell in love. The headroom, the large showers, the king-sized bed… it eliminated any further talk of travel trailers from the discussion.

Although we didn’t have anywhere near the knowledge we have now, we weren’t naive or illusioned by what we saw on TV. We both had lived in Florida for decades and were no strangers to RVing. …or the varying degrees to which people adopt the lifestyle.

It’s attractive to a very diverse and unique group of people (very unique in some cases), and there are numerous sub-cultures.

One thing I knew before we began, was how important research and reservations are. For one thing, not all places are open year-round and for another, the really popular places book quickly.

My first husband and I used to tent camp during the winter in south Florida.

DO NOT … DO NOT … TENT CAMP IN FLORIDA DURING THE SUMMER

We lived near Jonathan Dickinson State Park, it’s one of the larger state recreation areas in south Florida, and we often camped at one of it’s two developed campgrounds.

It’s hot… it’s muggy… and it’s buggy.

If you want to camp in the winter in Florida, you need a reservation and well… that requires some planning. Federal and state campgrounds open their booking windows six months, and in some cases, up to a year in advance and any available reservations fill up fast.

Waiting lists exist for the most popular destinations, like Bahia Honda, or really any campground in the Florida Keys. Public or private. Which is why it’s always a good idea to make reservations well in advance.

But then again obtaining a reservations at any truly popular tourist destination is going to present challenges, no matter where you want to visit.

Unless… you know, you’re like rich or something and have access to unlimited funds, or just don’t care about the quality (think: safety) of your campground. Some places are literal parking lots, with dump stations.

RVing is EXTREMELY expensive. However, there are ways to save money.

One way is to head to a region and stay for the entire season, rather than to a specific destination. Many RV campgrounds offer seasonal sites at discounted rates.

Then using the campground as a “base of operation”, you have 4-6 months to explore the surrounding area. Allowing you to see not just one place, but lots of places. Sometimes you even find something you weren’t expecting.

Florida is a retiree mecca, but it’s not the only one. Arizona is another popular destination, especially amongst the “snowbirds”.

Those snowbirds… man they like to chase the weather. Living up north in the summer, then heading south to enjoy the warmer, sunnier climes of Florida, south Texas, or Arizona for the winter.

Seasonal sites are premium sites and the best places, once again, have waiting lists.

One tip to getting a site is to contact campgrounds at the end of their camping season. They usually offer their seasonal campers the option of reserving their site for the following season and campgrounds usually have a pretty good idea which campers won’t be returning. Ask if any sites are available, or if they think any will be opening soon.

Many campground websites also list their booking windows and will sometimes say if they have a waiting list or not. I’ve seen plenty of notices that were essentially the equivalencies of no vacancy signs.

Since we wanted to see as much as possible, we looked for a campground that had seasonal sites and rates far from Florida. We settled on a popular portion of the Colorado River known as the Parker Strip and “The Man” discovered an RV resort called Echo Lodge.

He contacted the resort inquiring about openings. They had a couple of sites, so he paid a deposit and we rented our first, five month winter campsite.

We didn’t have a camper yet, but we had plans, and we had the most important thing… RESERVATIONS.