Adventures a la Road - SC to Key West 2018 Roadtrip

#1
So this has been about 6 months in the making. We have planned out many of the details and enjoyed reading other reports and stories of similar trips. Emily and I leave out Friday toward Key West, FL. We plan to take the interstate for much of the travels, but have a number of backroad stops along the way. I'll be doing my best to post some updates along the way as we have time. The Timeline looks like this:

Friday: Chapin,SC to Savannah, GA
Saturday: Savannah to Port Canaveral, FL
Sunday: Port Canaveral to Key Largo, FL
Monday: Key Largo to Key West
Tuesday: Key West
Wednesday: Key West to Marathon, FL
Thursday: Marathon to Sebring, FL
Friday: Sebring to Chassahowitzka, FL
Saturday: Chassahowitzka to Fernandina Beach, FL
Sunday: Fernandina Beach to Edisto Beach, SC
Monday: Edisto Beach to Chapin, SC.

Hoping to see some cool sites and explore the areas. We have booked sites for most of the nights and are visiting friends along the way.

If anyone has any awesome spots we should check out that are not your typical tourist trap spots I would love to hear about them.

We are planning to at least travel through part of Ocala one day, but I havent nailed down the details. There are some great backcountry campsites in FL, but all of them require a vehicle inspection and $100 permit from what I can tell.

Let the packing commence!
 
#2
Nice! The Keys are an amazing place. You'll have a blast. Stop at a marina or two where some of the giant tarpon hang out under the docks and you can throw food at them. It's a trip to see those huge fish. Also, Hemingway's house is pretty neat.

Also, don't expect to see beaches in the Keys. There's only one natural one, I think (Emily's beach or something like that?).
 
#4
Nice! The Keys are an amazing place. You'll have a blast. Stop at a marina or two where some of the giant tarpon hang out under the docks and you can throw food at them. It's a trip to see those huge fish. Also, Hemingway's house is pretty neat.

Also, don't expect to see beaches in the Keys. There's only one natural one, I think (Emily's beach or something like that?).
We are planning to stop at Robbies to feed the Tarpons, and we are camping at John Pennecamp Coral Reef State park in Key Largo to see some beaches. There are a few down there, but you are right about it being harder to find than you would think.

Here is a link to the proposed route.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zMsCrD2X3dJr6dD6OQY8mNKUJSIdMSjX&usp=sharing
 
#8
I'll ask shannon the name of the place we are at. Delicious food. Mojito's had sugar cane as the stirrer and fresh coconut milk. Very good.
 
#9
Haven’t really had a moment to just sit still and record the trip. We hit the road Friday and made it to camp in savannah, Ga. we hit the town for drinks and dinner on the riverfront.





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#11
If you are going to Sebring, i would suggest maybe changing your camping location to the Avon Park Bombing Range. It is a military facility with a nice recreation area. Lots of dirts trails and areas to explore. We used to camp there every year with my old club down there. It was a great place to camp. It is not that far north of Sebring

http://avonparkafr.net/public-recreation-schedule.html
Still have a lot to update on this one. I have recorded most of it and trying to get the pictures together. There was a Blackout Date until December for Avon Park, so we stayed at Highland Hammock.
 
#12
We spent Friday night in Savannah at the Savannah Oaks RV Resort which was a nice base camp for exploring Savannah. We enjoyed some drinks downtown Savannah and walked around a bit while it drizzled. Saturday morning we woke up and made some breakfast and headed Toward Florida.

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We made a stop at the Florida Welcome Center for a bathroom break and headed to St. Augustine for the Day. We wandered around the city during the day and had a bunch of good food then hit the road for the Fountain of Youth. I had heard tails of this place and new it was a pretty big tourist trap. But it turned out to be a pretty fun way to kill the afternoon. We stopped in for a Movie in the Dome, saw the blacksmith, and then watched them shoot some old cannons. After we took our drink from the fountain of youth we headed to Daytona for dinner. We were too close to the Bass Pro Shops not to stop in and browse for a bit, so we did, then high tailed it to Port Canaveral for Camp Saturday Night. 25119E9B-BBBF-418A-94A3-E04E902131E9.jpeg 0DB956C3-5AB6-4BAB-A7F1-7ACBA9C08D1A.jpeg C80EDA3A-C4F3-427A-A275-7C1FEE08C819.jpeg 9DCD0956-F904-4C9F-A7D9-A17B53603243.jpeg 7FAF3FC3-9B0A-49E7-81E7-B6D5337E3AAE.jpeg 683E8CAB-48C8-4705-9692-804AC37208A1.jpeg 1D04D498-EE09-4791-876B-1B014C577980.jpeg
 
#13
We got in to the Port Canaveral Campground after 10pm. We had a sweet site right on the Port inlet. It made for a cool morning as we watched the cruise ships stroll out to sea in the monring. They were so close, it looked like a wall of a hotel was driving by the camper.

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#14
At just around daylight after the last cruise ship set out, we noticed our neighbor packing frantically, they were in a pop top slide in truck camper. About 10 minutes later we heard them pull out. Then about 10 minutes later we heard why they had left. The rain started trickling down on top of our camper and we checked the weather and it was going to be a wet morning. We made the best of it with some breakfast and coffee in the camper and then headed out to wander the beach in the drizzle. It was warm outside, but the rain was a little cold for a morning walk.

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#15
We left Port Canaveral later that morning as the heavier rain rolled in and made our way south. We stopped a little above Miami in Deerfield Beach at a place called quiet waters park. Its a sweet park in florida that has a cable wakeboard lake and tons of walking and MTB trails. We spent a few hours walking the dogs, exploring, and had a picnic lunch at one of the covered shelters. The weather was right around 80 and it was awesome. After lunch we set sails for the keys and finally made it to our Campsite for Sunday night at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. We setup camp and then went to explore the park and maybe try out our snorkeling gear.

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#16
Monday morning we made breakfast and some coffee and went to the beach for some more snorkeling. We hit up some of the awesome snorkeling beaches they had there and saw the old spanish warship cannons and multiple sting rays and fish. While the camping facilities were not near the water at all, John Pennenkamp state park has tons of opportunities for fun watersports right on site.
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Around 10am we packed up our stuff and headed south again for some fun stops as we worked our way down the Keys.

first stop of the day was the Rain Barrel Village and their Giant Lobster. We cruised around the shops for a bit then moved on.
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We stopped for lunch and drinks at Morada Bay Beach Cafe, saw a few sharks swim by from the dock.
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#18
We left Robbies and headed to our Campsite on the island of Key West where we had a two night reservation at Boyd's Campground. We stopped at a really cool old bridge on the way and took some photos and wandered around in the ocean.
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Once on the island, we headed for a local Thai restaurant, and on the way we spotted a dinosaur, or at least a Winn Dixie, that had a liquor store in it! I thought all of them were closed, but there are still come open down here.

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