By Valerie Coffey
Sunset over Sunset Key, viewed from Mallory Square, Key West
At the start of our full-time RV adventure in fall 2014, one of the first places Mitch and I headed was Key West, Florida, the Southernmost tip of the continental U.S. We stayed for ten days. We enjoyed it so much, that in fall 2015, we decided to spend seven weeks in the Conch (pronounced Konk) Republic. We even had family join us there for Thanksgiving. (Read our previous post about where we stayed.)
We have a lot to share about Key West: what it’s like, what to expect, and what to do there. So here are our ten “key take-aways” from Key West:
By Valerie Coffey
In April of 2014, Mitch and I took our first RV trip together a few months before we purchased our new home on wheels. We thought a short trial voyage with a rental RV would be a good idea before we exchanged our sticks & bricks house in Massachusttes for full-time life on the road. (Um. Ya think!?) Mitch had some experience RVing on family vacations but me, not so much.
So we took a road trip, rented a 36′ Winnebago from a private owner in Pennslvania, and drove it to Virginia for a long weekend.
I was sold on the RV lifestyle immediately! What a rush to be riding high, looking out the big windshield at the view, angsting at every turn and at every overhead branch and cable, but every minute becoming more comfortable behind the wheel of a big rig.
But perhaps what *really* romanced me was the rental advertisement for the RV we rented. In the ad, the rig was pictured at a tropical waterfront site in Key West, Florida. The owner told us that he took this picture of his rig at Boyd’s Key West Campground, a popular RV destination in Key West that required booking months in advance. We couldn’t wait to get there!
The advertisement that captured our attention: a 36′ RV at Boyd’s Key West Campground.
Now that we’ve stayed for a longer period at numerous RV campgrounds in the Keys, we found Boyd’s was only the tip of the iceberg. The Keys are chock full of great places to camp or RV! We found some other sites we liked even better!
Here’s our take on several amazing RV parks in and around Key West…
By Valerie Coffey
You can’t see it, but I’m sporting a huge smile here and bursting with excitement to see my first mountain goat! And such a beautiful one at sunset on the spectacular Highline Trail in Glacier National Park in Montana!
What does a year-plus of full-time traveling by RV around the US get you? 10,000 pictures and video totaling 60 GB of files!
Granted, we have two of us taking pictures — a LOT of pictures — using mostly a Samsung Galaxy S5 cell phone and a Canon EOS D60, occasionally a GoPro Hero4, and various other DSLR cameras.
And we are solidly amateurs dabbling in photography. But here on Google+ is a sampling of 31 photos that are my personal favorites from our amazing year, representing every region of the country, every month of our travels, and boatloads of smiles.
Click on the Google+ box below.
https://plus.google.com/107839670759502214880/posts/VfSRGDAAtK2
By Valerie C. Coffey
We left our sticks & bricks home in Massachusetts forever on August 14, 2014, driving away in our brand new Thor Tuscany 45-foot motorcoach for a year or more traveling the US.
Taking delivery of our new Thor Tuscany in June 2014.
We sold our homes, sold a lifetime of belongings, dropped of the kids at college, continued our jobs on the road, and have had the kick-ass adventure of a lifetime this past year, and have seen so much of the US! We have learned so much!
People commonly ask us — What’s the best thing you’ve seen? — an impossible thing to answer, because it’s entirely personal, based on our pre-RVing experiences, values, prevailing weather and our mood at the time. In one year, we have hit 42 states and have driven 25,000 miles in the RV with an additional 15,000 in the Hyundai Veloster tow car.
We have stayed at well over 100 different sites, including luxury RV resorts, campgrounds, RV parks that resemble parking lots, state parks, and national parks. We have managed to completely avoid an overnight stay in the parking lot of a 24-hr WalMart!
But we do have some answers!!
What is THE BEST THING we’ve seen??
By Valerie Coffey
THEY ARE BOTH ORANGE!
When I saw the Daily Post’s photo challenge: “Orange you glad it’s photo challenge time?” I couldn’t resist. Since August, we’ve seen many shades of orange: from the orangey-pink rocks of the Grand Canyon to fiery orange sunsets in the Florida Keys.Here is a citrus-y collection of The Mitch & Val Roadshow’s orangest experiences in seven months of full-time RV travel around the U.S so far, in rough chronological order. Hover your mouse over each image for more information.
By Mitch R.
Valerie and I have now been on the road for close to four months, the length of a school semester, so it’s a good time to evaluate the best of what we have seen, experienced, and accomplished since becoming full-time RVers. If our trip were to have an interim report card, this is how we would evaluate some of our goals:
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