RV Road Trip - Maine to Florida

Written by Nancy Carter, Making My Own Lane

A slow-paced, three-month trip up the East Coast from Florida to Maine, and a faster, two-week return trip back to Florida. 1,777 miles and 8 stops.

Why the rush, you ask? Well, right before I left Florida, I found out my daughter and son-in-law were expecting a baby! So exciting.

The baby was due in the beginning of December. I would be back in plenty of time, right?

What about the baby shower? Put the brakes on … I wasn’t due back home until after Thanksgiving 😮.

Yes, I did grapple with the thought of not being at the baby shower, for almost 2 months. But in the end, it was not an occasion I wanted to miss, so I cut out some of my stops on the way back (Gettysburg, Dollywood, and the Smoky Mountains), stayed as long as I could in Maine, and moved more quickly to be home by October 1.

I decided to add Tennessee and West Virginia to my 2024 trip, and I went to the mountains of northern Georgia on a shorter trip in November of 2023.

Being flexible in your plans and expecting the unexpected is important when you are living and traveling in your RV full-time.

My total time away for this first big adventure was about 4 months. I learned that 4 months is a good amount of time to be away from my Florida “home base”.

My trip back to Florida looked like this:

Moody Beach Thousand Trails, Wells Maine

I stopped at many of the campgrounds on the way back that I stayed at on the way up, for three reasons.

They were convenient stops on my way home
I was familiar with them and didn’t have to research anything
They were free. I pay only annual dues. Free is good.

I will be doing a review of each of the campgrounds I stayed at on this trip, including how level they were, how good the internet was, and amenities.

If you are interested to getting a listing of all the campgrounds I stayed from Florida to Maine and back for your own trip planning, click here and request the East Coast RV road trip planner.

Moody Beach was about a 4-hour drive from Bar Harbor. They had added a brand new dog park since I had last been there just 3 weeks ago!

And I love the “pull-in”, twin sites that made it so easy to park your RV.

Learning to live in an RV means learning to pay attention to the weather very closely. I look at the radar and check forecasted wind speeds frequently, even it's just to know the best times to take my dogs for a walk.

It's no fun living in a concrete-block house with very high winds. In an RV it can be even more dangerous.

I ended up leaving this campground and moving on to the next one early because Hurricane Lee was working its way up the east coast. Moody Beach is a mile from the ocean in the orange area on the map below, and I didn’t feel comfortable staying with the forecasted high winds and rain.

Sturbridge Thousand Trails, Sturbridge Massachusetts

It was only a 2 ½ hour drive from Moody Beach to Sturbridge, where I stayed for 5 days to allow the storm to pass.

Sturbridge is nowhere near the beach, so that campground was full to capacity and turning people away. Many people were also trying to escape the Hurricane by going inland. I was happy I switched my reservations early, so I had a place to stay.

We were still expecting rain and wind, so, other than checking people in, the campground canceled all their weekend activities to make sure that the staff and campers would be safe.

Rondout Valley, Thousand Trails, Accord New York

Another campground I revisited from my travels to the North. Rondout Valley is about a three-hour drive from Sturbridge. And it was a free-to-me place to stay for a couple of nights.

The weather was beautiful, and I was able to enjoy clear, starry nights and cooking hotdogs over a campfire.

Because the park was a lot less full than on my trip up, I was able to pick a campsite next to a stream.

By now, I was really struggling with the leaky extensions on the rear duallys, and was very careful to check the tire pressure almost daily. You can read more about that here.

New Jersey

I was able to plan my return trip so that I could spend the weekend visiting with my father and my sister’s in New Jersey! I spent more time with them this year than I had in a long time. One of the benefits of being able to travel slowly and go where you want.

It only took about three hours to get to her house with a stop at my Dad's house for lunch.

Luckily his neighbor's haven't minded when I've parked for an afternoon in front of his house.

Lums Pond State Park, Bear Delaware

2 ½ hours. I arrived around 1:00 and had the rest of the day to explore the trails in this pretty State Park before I moved on the next day.

I didn’t worry about any hookups, so I could leave quickly the next morning. My battery was at 100%, I had plenty of fresh water in my tanks, and my gray tank was still fairly empty.

On the trip back to Florida, my planning app was severely underestimating the time of the trip by as much as 1 ½ hours!

Pocahontas State Park, Chesterfield Virginia

Over 5 hours of driving. I really liked this park, but it is a good 30 minutes off of 95, which added an extra hour of driving time to my trip overall.

There are 20 miles of hiking trails, including a waterfall, and a water activity center.

Wild turkeys on the trail

Even though it was a rainy day, I did hike to the waterfall.

I didn’t bother with any hookups here either, even though I had full hookups at my site. I was at 100% on my batteries, and it was cold enough where I didn’t need my AC.

Lumberton KOA, North Carolina

Five hours after I left Pocahontas State Park, I reached the Lumberton, KOA, conveniently located not far off of 95.

There was a walking trail along a canal, a pond, 2 dog parks, and private showers.

I did hook up to electric, refill my fresh water tank and dump my grey tanks here. It had been about a week since I last used any outside electricity or water!

Harvest Host Debellation Brewing Company, Georgetown Georgia

Today was only a 4-hour drive. Debellation Brewing Company is a place I had stayed on my way North. Super conveniently located right off 95, outside of Savannah.

Home Base Florida

One more longish day. Five hours with rain and traffic. But I had made it back in time for the baby shower, with a stop at Buc-cees for gas and lunch.

What I learned on my RV Road Trip back to Florida.

Assume the trip will take longer than you thought.
I can drive five hours, especially if I take a quick break to walk the dogs or eat lunch or both.
I can drive four or five hours a day for at least five days in a row! While I thought that would be exhausting, it wasn’t so bad.
Not hooking up to amenities and leaving at 9 am to get to my next destination was a good idea. That way I had the afternoon to explore and decompress, and it didn’t feel so much like a travel day.

This is good to know, as for my upcoming trip I will be driving longer and staying for less time in each stop than I did in 2023 on my way North from Florida to Maine.

That way I can spend more time in the places I really want to be!

And, my first big adventure was a success!

Thanks for joining me as I journeyed up the East Coast from Florida to Bar Harbor, Maine and back.

Stay tuned for my “mini-trip” to Helen Georgia.

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