Our Observations
The whole point of this adventure (besides having fun and eating tasty things) was to explore various parts of Florida to determine where we might like to spend a little more time. Previously, in addition to Orlando, we spent one week in Marathon/Key West and two weeks in the Fort Lauderdale/Miami area. My DH also visited Tampa many times on business. Other than that we really had little experience outside Orlando. As we traveled, we tried to get the flavor of each area and didn't worry too much about "doing everything". Our thought was if there's still things we want to do in a particular area, that's a good indication we should revisit it some time.
Here's what we discovered in our travels:
1) First and foremost, we still love Orlando, especially Disney. I've always been a Disney fan but my DH has found that he enjoys it very much as well, especially the treats!
2) Ironically, our least favorite areas turned out to be the ones we had visited before: Marathon, Key West, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. We are not nightlife people or city people and those areas were just too crowded, too difficult to travel around, and too expensive. We also found our least favorite meals were in those cities.
3) We discovered we really enjoyed taking walks and seeing wildlife and that many of the areas we visited had great nature walks.
4) We realized that having a kitchen area so that every meal didn't HAVE to be out at a restaurant is a huge advantage. After a while on the road we got pretty tired of eating out.
5) With the exception of the aforementioned areas in item #2, we found service to be excellent in most restaurants and people in general to be very friendly.
6) Our favorite areas (besides Orlando) ended up being the Palm Coast area and the Space Coast area on the Atlantic Coast and the Sarasota-Bradenton area on the Gulf Coast. We also liked the Treasure Coast and may revisit that area some time. We still need to venture up the panhandle some time too to check out that area as well.
7) We learned that staying on the outskirts of some cities might be a cost savings but can also be less safe so it's important to check the neighborhoods.
8) In terms of areas on the way down/back, we loved Charlotte, NC and still love Lancaster, PA. Charlottesville VA was also really nice.
Based on these conclusions, we booked reservations for next April as soon as we returned home from this trip. This time however with advance planning and more time spent in each area, we were able to book condos through VRBO. Also whenever possible for hotels, I booked Residence Inns or Towneplace Suites to have kitchens.
Here's next year's April/May itinerary:
Day 1: stay in Chesapeake, VA
Day 2: stay in Charleston, SC
Day 3 - 7: Condo on Ormond Beach
Day 8 - 14: Orlando (right now we're booked at the Towneplace Suites Flamingo Crossings but hoping for a decent discount to stay on property at Pop or POFQ. Also if our sons decide to join us for this portion of the trip we may shorten Ormond Beach and spend the weekend at Universal. I have one night booked at Royal Pacific just in case)
Day 15-19: Condo on Cocoa Beach
Day 20 - 24: House in Bradenton
Day 25 - 29: Cabin in Fanning Springs State Park (a new area for us to explore)
Day 30: Augusta, GA
Day 31 - 33: Charlotte, NC
Day 34: Harrisonburg, VA
Day 35-36: Lancaster PA
Day 37: home
We can't wait for this next adventure...only 191 days left!
Thank you to everyone for reading along! I can't wait to document our 2024 trip! In the meantime, maybe I'll do a brief report about South Dakota....Thanks again!