DAY 1
(of motorhome rental after previous one night hotel stay upon arrival)
Collect your motorhome from the depot in Miami. Your base tonight is the recently refurbished Grassy Key RV Park. We recommend booking in advance to try to secure a waterfront site.
✪ 90-100 miles to Grassy Key, Florida Keys
★ Visit the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy Key
DAY 2
Cross the seven mile bridge and several more on the way across Marathon, Big Pine Key and the many others on the way to Key West. Boyd’s Key West Campground is just five miles from the Keys’ southernmost tip and an idyllic spot.
✪ 55 miles to Key West
★ Visit Hemmingway’s favourite Captain Tony’s and Smoky Joe’s pubs and don’t miss seeing the sun go down from Mallory Pie
DAY 3
Head back north bound for John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. Established in 1963, this was the first undersea park created in the United States. The park, combined with the adjacent Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, encompasses 178 nautical square miles of coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove swamps.
✪ 100 miles to Pennekamp National Park
★ Visit both Coral Reef and the National Marine Sanctuary
DAY 4
Leave the Florida Keys and drive into the Everglades National Park. Not a swamp as popularly pictured but technically a vast river slowly flowing southwest. The very popular Flamingo Campground should be pre-booked online using the National Park Service website that also has so much information and pictures of this amazing environment.
✪ 75 miles to Everglades National Park
★ Visit the Everglades National park: in your vehicle but also on foot or on the water
DAY 5
You are headed to Sanibel Island. Periwinkle Park & Campground is a bird lover’s delight. You can see many species of exotic and native birds including toucans, macaws and lemurs.
✪ 230 miles to Sanibel via Route 41 through the Everglades and the Big Cypress National Reserve
★ Visit the shelling beaches of Captiva Island and, to end a perfect day, we always head for The Mucky Duck pub.
DAY 6
Back to the mainland and, to gobble up those miles, it’s worth taking the Interstates 75/275 bound for Fort DeSoto Country Park. Its 1,136 acres are made up of five inter connected islands and many sites are directly on the water. You can fish from two free piers and rent boats and bikes. A lot of fun.
✪ 145 miles to Fort DeSoto Park
★ Visit – Nowhere! DeSoto has won the America’s Best Beach award twice in the last five years so just stay and enjoy.
DAY 7
Walt Disney World and Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort is calling. Please book ahead, deciding in advance how many nights you want to spend there to see your choices of Disney Theme Parks.
✪ 100 miles to Disney’s Fort Wilderness
★ Visit all the sites of Disney plus all the other Orlando area attractions including Universal Studios
DAY 8
Head east to the Atlantic and make for world famous Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Centre, NASA’s launch headquarters. Here you can tour launch areas, see the giant rockets, train in space flight simulators and see the moon close up via stunning iMax presentations. If you’re lucky, you might meet a veteran astronaut. Your recommended campsite is just a little way south and just ten minutes from the beaches.
✪ 155 miles to Fort Pearce
★ Visit, and tour, the Kennedy Space Center of course but also Fort Pierce Inlet State Park
DAY 9
The choice today is to speed down the Interstate in a couple of hours or to meander along the coast road through such well known addresses as Hobe Sound, Jupiter and oh so classy Palm Beach and Boca Raton. Your destination is North Coast which has been a favourite among motorhomers and the small boat community for fifty years. The sands of Dania Beach are just minutes away.
✪ 105 miles to Dania Beach
★ Visit the world famous shopping on Palm Beach’s Worth Avenue and the last night fun and sun in Fort Lauderdale
DAY 10
Head back to Miami to drop off your motorhome.
