Always Want To Go

How and where we manage to travel these days. Cruising and international travel were our favorite travel vacations. Our Ireland, Barcelona, Florence, Naples, Pompeii, Rome, and transatlantic cruise trips were some of our best and most enjoyable trips.

We cannot cruise now and we are not ready to even fly domestically yet. Travel is essential to us. We do not want to give it up. Our solution is our self-contained motorhome and a Jeep that we pull behind it.

We expect to see as much as we can of this beautiful country in a responsible, socially distant sort of way. Our second COVID vaccine is just days away and that removes some of our stress about becoming COVID victims. We will continue masks and all precautions of course, because of the possibility that we could still transmit the disease.

We are retired now, so dates and length of trips are insignificant considerations. Very little planning is required. We simply load our usual everyday groceries onto the RV, carry our clothes out to the RV and go. Oddly enough, we most often do not leave home until mid-afternoon on most of our trips. We have no reason to rush or hurry.

A few of our storage options. Cabinets and storage cubes in the bedroom for clothes and baskets in cabinets for groceries.

We have a preliminary plan for where we are going, but these days we rarely make RV reservations more than four days ahead of time. Thousands of people have recently purchased some form of recreational vehicle and are booking sites at parks across the nation. That means that sometimes we have been unable to stay precisely where we would like to because of our spur of the moment ways.

There are so many camping choices available, however, that we have always ended up somewhere safe and comfortable and always have a great experience.

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Boondocking – quiet and peaceful camping

We are not fans of the “wasp nest” style RV parks and resorts. We do not need or use the pools, hot tubs, lazy rivers, clubhouses, and other amenities often found at resorts. As often as we can, we try to boondock. Boondocking, sometimes called dry camping, means you are camping in your RV without water, electric, or sewer connections. There are many places to boondock and many types of boondocking.

• Harvest Hosts – paid subscription service
• Boondockers Welcome – paid subscription service
• Parking lot overnight stays at Bass Pro Shop, Campers World, Cracker Barrel, to name a few.
• Some states, Kansas and Texas, for example, provide excellent overnight parking lots for RVers. Florida, on the other hand, only allows three-hour parking at their rest stops.
• Free camping is available at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) areas.
• Some national forests throughout the country allow free camping.
• There are free camping opportunities at some Wildlife Management Areas (WMA).
• It’s actually possible to be boondocking with reservations and pay a fee for your stay. Not all boondocking is free of charge.
• Overnight camping can be found, sometimes free and sometimes for a small fee, at developed campgrounds without hookups. These sites can usually be reserved, so they require a little planning.
• City parks sometimes provide overnight RV camping, usually for a small fee.
• Some state and national parks have campsites with no hookups, but reservations are usually always required here.

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Staying connected

We’ve had unreliable and sometimes no cellular service on our past travel. Steve purchased a weBoost to help remedy that problem. As soon as he installed it, we were ready to travel. You, of course, have to have at least a minimal cell connection for it to work, but it usually adds at least one bar to our cellular service, often more than that.

Our weBoost does not increase connection speed, but I have been able to work on my computer and iPad just fine, using the hotspot from my cell phone. I believe this was a great purchase and addition to our RV.

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Groceries / Food

I am frequently relying now on meals made in my Instant Pot or outside on our 17-inch Blackstone grill. Almost any meal can be put together quickly without using multiple dishes, pots, or pans. The Instant Pot is relatively new to me, but I have become a massive fan of this updated pressure cooker. I make a few one-pot freezer meals at home to drop in the Instant Pot and pack ingredients that will mix well for either Instant Pot, Blackstone Grill, or stovetop/oven meals.

I have choices depending on the weather, time available, and what I feel like cooking at the moment. Of course, the food you are able to cook over an open campfire is always a delicious choice!

Here’s the easy-peasy campfire smores recipe we like.

Ingredients you need:
Ice cream cones
Aluminum foil
Mini marshmallows
Chocolate chips or Hershey’s chocolate squares

Fill the cones with marshmallows and chocolate pieces. Tightly wrap them in foil. Heat over a campfire for 3-5 minutes. OR, bake in an oven at 350 for 5-7 minutes—nothing to it.

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Where we find adventure on the fly

Terrific sunset through the trees.

Over the years, we have discovered that the adventures we find by accident are often much better than the planned experiences. For this reason, we do not spend too much time planning and focus on just doing, taking things as they come.

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Florida in January?

Fort Myers in January

We really do not have a plan as to where we travel. For our last RV excursion, we chose to go to Florida. Steve was stationed in Orlando and Jacksonville when he was in the Navy and spent some time working in Miami. I had only driven through Florida on the way to somewhere else. When Steve suggested we travel to Florida, it sounded like a great idea. Here we go, another adventure. Following is the story of our three-night wanders on our way to Florida.

We left our home mid-afternoon on a weekday with a plan to travel to Florida for a few weeks. The only definite part of this trip was to be sure we were home by February 8^th, the date of our second COVID vaccine appointment.

Vermilionville Historic Village

300 Fisher Rd.
Lafayette, LA 70508

Our boondocking spot at Vermilionville.

First stop – Vermilionville Historic Village’s parking lot. Unfortunately, they were closed when we arrived after dark, and we were unable to visit the amazing-looking historic village, so now we hope to stop by earlier in the day on our way home.

We slept well in the parking lot and got on the road the next morning, headed east. We obtained permission to stay overnight here under one of the subscription services listed above.

Buc-ee’s Georgia

20403 County Rd. 68
Robertsdale Alabama 36567

The Texas Dow Employees Credit Union is offering a promotion at this time for 10 cents off per gallon of gas if you use their Buc-ee’s credit card. This significant savings is the reason we search out Buc-ee’s stations. It turned out that this particular Buc-ee’s does not participate in the promotional discount.

Still, Buc-ee’s Platinum Mastercard from TDECU is really worth checking into, however, if you travel mostly in the Texas area. Ten cents off per gallon of gas is a deal whether it is for an RV, car, or boat because the price is already a discounted rate, to begin with.

TLC Wolf Creek Resort

23098 Freddie Frank Road
Pass Christian, MS 39571

I mentioned earlier that we do not really care for RV resorts. Although Wolf Creek IS an RV resort, we could camp overnight at no charge because it is a member of one of the boondocking subscription services. Although we enjoyed our stay here very much, no matter how beautifully scenic and wonderfully friendly our neighbors are, it is not our favorite thing to do. We did have water and electric hookups here.

The park staff was some of the nicest people we’ve met on our travels. This park is situated a very few miles from Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, with its beautiful beaches and historic sites. We definitely recommend TLC Wolf Creek Resort, especially if you are more comfortable in an RV park setting.

Day trip to Biloxi and Ocean Springs

Sunset on the white sand beach at Biloxi

We unhooked our Jeep during our stay at Wolf Creek Resort and drove it to Gulfport, Biloxi, and Ocean Springs for a couple of day trips. These are a few of the historical sites we came across on our drive along the beachfront. There are hotels, restaurants, casinos, and those beautiful white sand beaches to be seen and investigated here.

Biloxi

Biloxi beach

Moran Site

This is the site of a French Colonial cemetery dating back to 1720. It includes at least thirty burials and is the oldest known French Colonial cemetery in the South. Remains were first discovered at this site in 1914. In 1969 twelve burials were found during foundation repair to the Moran Art Studio after Hurricane Camille. The remains were left in place in the Art Studio but were viewable through a plexiglass window placed on the studio’s floor. Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Moran Art Studio in 2005 but allowed exploration of the entire site and the discovery of more burials.

White House Hotel

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Ocean Springs

Crooked Feather sculpted by Thomas King, a replica of Peter “Wolf” Toth’s 1975 original

Ocean Springs, just a few miles down the road from Biloxi, was a surprise for us. We did not expect to see such a charming tree-lined downtown area. There are specialty shops of all kinds, the town is dog-friendly and very walkable. It was a chilly day, but we spent an enjoyable couple of hours meandering along Washington Avenue along with a surprising number of Saturday shoppers. All were masked and maintained a social distance.

Terrific walking town with lots of interesting shops

So you see, we do not make many set or scheduled plans, but we still manage to discover wonderful historical and scenic nuggets in places we do not expect to find them. Nothing earth-shattering, but interesting, we believe. Our travels are kind of like a never-ending treasure hunt.

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I did not expect or intend for Always Want To Go to be an RV travel blog, but this is the travel option available to us now, and we hope you enjoy reading our RV travel stories for now. Perhaps we will be able to add cruising and international travel again one day soon? For now, we would love to hear about your RV travel experiences, advice, hints, or tricks. Also, we would enjoy hearing if any of our suggestions work for you in your situation.

Who had a flat tire?

Here we are on the highway before it got dark!

Last-minute update here. I am working on this story from our RV parked along the very busy I-10, not far from Pensacola and not very far inside the Alabama state line. WE HAVE A FLAT TIRE! We’ve patiently been waiting over an hour now for AAA to come to change the tire. My most recent update from AAA told us it would be yet another hour before they arrived.

We will not make it to our boondocking spot tonight, it appears! Steve, both dogs, and I are all safe and comfortable. Flat tires are occasionally expected, and now we have another memory and story to tell.