BikingTampa St Pete Area - late Dec 2020

[TJFogelberg]

Looking for suggestions on an RV park accessible to the Pinellas Trail. I'm a Thousand Trails member with Trails Collection so hoping for a park in this system. (Holiday Travel, Barrington Hills, Winter Quarters, Silver Dollar,Vacation Village, Topics). In reading reviews on rvparkreviews and trip advisor, not much mention of bike trails. I'll be coming up from Harbor Lakes in Port Charlotte in mid-Dec on my way back to MN. Another question pertains to the snowbird season, will the 2nd half of Dec be busy or does the "rush" start after Christmas more into January?

[ThomB]

Vacation Village isn’t far from the trail. We live a little over 5 miles from the park. It’s in the city and not extremely quiet (but for us it’s not much different than the house). Leslie who runs the park does a great job. It’s closer to the southern end of the trail. I think from over there you’d be about 6-8 miles south to downtown St. Pete.

2 years ago we had issues getting into Vacation Village during the winter. We weren’t in FL this past winter so we didn’t try. There are a lot of snowbirds that come down to this area during the winter and I guess the park was pretty full most of the winter.

[TJFogelberg]

Thanks ThomB for the recommendation...I will definitely try to get into Vacation Village when my booking window (60 days) opens up in mid -Oct. So far I have secured reservations at Bulow (Flager Beach) Clermont (Orlando), Gulf View (Punta Gorda), and Harbor Lakes. I'm on an Elite Thousand Trails contract with the Florida "max pass" attachment + Trails Collection. Will be gone for 3 1/2 months and most stays will be in the TT system at no additional charge.

[ThomB]

We full-timed with them for nearly 3 full years and have been around the country 3 times (went to all 48 contiguous states). We came back to the house in April to fix a couple things up. We’ll probably just travel sporadically now. We have our TT membership but dropped the TC since we’re not going to use it anytime soon.

[TJFogelberg]

If the price ($299) for the Trails Collection "holds", I'll probably keep it indefinitely as I like the 100+ additional parks it gives me access to. But I could drop it too and be happy with 9 parks I have access to in Florida now with my new contract. Other favorite destinations for me are the Poconos (Timothy Lake South) and the Jersey Shore (Lake and Shore). We owned a Lazy Daze for 4 years from 2012-2016...many Lazy Dazer's go full time so I followed them online and thought seriously about trying full time when I retire. But now that I've Rv'd for awhile, have decided to keep the townhome (MN) as a home base. I did sell my second home last year which was a big relief after 15 years of owning 2 homes. I would never do that again. Way too much maintenance and expense. The current townhome makes a nice home base and is easy to "lock and leave".

[TJFogelberg]

Was able to book Vacation Village in Largo FL for a week in mid-Dec on my Trails Collection subscription. For anyone not familiar with Thousand Trails, I would encourage you to check it out. Don Potts has a couple of very in depth articles on the Thousand Trails system on his website. I have booked 5 or 6 parks in Florida for Nov and Dec on my membership.

D & D World Travel

[ThomB]

Originally Posted by TJFogelberg

Was able to book Vacation Village in Largo FL for a week in mid-Dec on my Trails Collection subscription. For anyone not familiar with Thousand Trails, I would encourage you to check it out. Don Potts has a couple of very in depth articles on the Thousand Trails system on his website. I have booked 5 or 6 parks in Florida for Nov and Dec on my membership.

D & D World Travel

That’s good. 2 years ago we had a hard time getting in there as they were booked most of the winter. Like I said we live about 5 miles away and would stay there when visiting the kids. We’re back at the house now so dropped the TC. We may pick it back up in the future if traveling to someplace that has a local park.