Celebrations at Floridays

Floridays Thanksgiving collageWe never brag about Floridays being the prettiest RV park in Florida. But we do brag about its charm and friendly people. Your view from the stoop may be your neighbor’s awning, the beach is a hike away, but we’re definitely an RV-friendly park with some great get-togethers. We know how to celebrate.

Thanksgiving celebrations centered around a spread of traditional holiday goodness that saved more than a few small RV ovens having to be cleaned. We swapped stories and told tall tales while consuming a ridiculous amount of calories at an Olympic pace.

New Years Eve at FloridaysNew Year’s Eve had us carving up yet another 23-pounder turkey, ham and beans, cornbread and all the traditional fixings in the glow of yet another golden Florida sunset. After dark, we lit the fire pit and somehow kept the cornhole tournament going. Live music and our favorite DJ kept most people on their feet. We danced and chatted toward the midnight countdown. For all our readers, we wish you happy cleanouts, functioning jacks, smooth transmissions, and smooth sliders throughout 2017!

What To Do at Floridays

Floridays’ hometown is Hobe Sound—a truly unique small town that today IS what Old Florida WAS. With its canopies of ficus trees, one-of-a-kind shops in a quaint and quiet historic downtown, friendly people and slower pace, it offers a quality of life reminiscent of yesteryear. In Martin County, it’s the perfect place to relax and get back to nature.

Nearby Jonathan Dickinson State Park features 11,500 acres of sand pine scrub, pine flatwoods, mangroves, and river swamps—and all the wildlife to go with it. You can rent canoes or kayaks in search of the elusive manatees that frequent the river in winter or hike the trails by foot or on horseback. Mountain bikers will find both easy and challenging trails throughout the park, and it’s a birdwatcher’s paradise for those who prefer their feet firmly planted on the ground. Ospreys and bald eagles build nests in the forest and along the Loxahatchee River. It’s not uncommon to spot deer, foxes, otters, and alligators.

The park’s newest addition is Palmettos on the Loxahatchee, an outdoor food and beverage garden overlooking the river serving wine and beer and fresh food using local, sustainable or organic foods when possible.

Just across Highway 1 from the State Park is the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge with 300 acres of hiking trails and a charming Intracoastal Waterway beach for long walks at sunset. On January 7, you can join an “EarthCache Adventure” to learn from naturalist Lis Wight about the unique features of the Hobe Sound Refuge’s ecosystem through the use of GPS coordinates. Reserve your space at (772) 546-2067.

Martin County’s Hobe Sound Public Beach is a short bike ride away, but even if you drive, parking is free. Public facilities include restrooms and a covered picnic area. Locals like to grab a sandwich “to-go” from Publix’s deli section and head to the beach just before sundown to catch the sounds and sights of the Atlantic Ocean.

For fishing aficionados, there are plentiful docks and piers throughout Martin County along the Intracoastal Waterway. Jimmy Graham Park offers a public boat ramp with restrooms and 50 parking spaces. The waters around Hobe Sound teem with every kind of saltwater fish. See the list. Check here for licensing information.

Getting to Hobe Sound

bridge roadWhen you come to Hobe Sound it just “feels different”. Everything slows down. Even motor traffic on Florida’s infamous U.S. Route 1 is less crowded. Big box stores are nowhere to be seen and folks shop local. Parking at the beach is free and main street is lined with small, independently-owned shops—many with murals painted by local artists and Jimmy Stovall, one of the original Highwaymen of Florida.

RVers coming up from the Florida Keys using U.S. Highway 1 (the scenic route) motor north through the congestion and craziness of Miami and the Palm Beaches before finding a certain quietness somewhere around Tequesta, just north of Jupiter’s historic lighthouse. Beyond County Line Road, it’s a pleasant 55 mph through the 11,000+ acre Jonathan Dickinson State Park on your left and snapshot views of the Intracoastal Waterway on your right. This is Martin County, with its beautiful beaches and more than 75 parks, and the most diverse lagoon ecosystem in the Northern hemisphere. At the crossroads of Hwy 1 and Bridge Road, you enter Hobe Sound and step back in time to the days of Old Florida and a slower pace of living.

Just a few blocks north of Hobe Sound’s only waterfront restaurant (when it rains) Harry & The Natives, you’ll find Floridays RV Park.

If you discover Hobe Sound from the north through Brevard County, US 1 wanders through the lower section of the Indian River Lagoon Scenic Highway and winds along the tree-lined streets of Sebastian before entering St. Lucie County, famous for it’s fabled 1715 Spanish treasure fleet that sank off its shores. Further south, Hwy 1 crosses over the St. Lucie River into Stuart, the largest town on the Treasure Coast and known as the Sailfish Capital of World. Arrive on a Sunday morning to check out Stuart’s quaint downtown and Sunday morning Green Market.

Coming from the west, RVer’s want to take Martin Highway (County Road 714) with it’s beautiful 12-mile Martin Grade Scenic Corridor shaded by a canopy of 100-year old oaks and surrounded by pastures, groves, swamps and woods that are the perfect prelude for the timeless nature of Hobe Sound. We’ll keep the lights on!

Learn more about Hobe Sound’s history and imagery at Florida Living Realty.

What Makes Floridays Great

There are as many reasons RV owners choose any particular RV park as there are reasons to choose the lifestyle itself. We thought we’d share a few of the reasons you might want to choose Floridays RV Park on your next trip to south Florida.
What makes an RV Park great?

  1. Location: Floridays is located along the historic Highway 1 that rambles along the eastern seacoast of south central Florida. Just like Route 66 that helped settle the west, Highway 1 brought the early snowbirds to south Florida. Nowadays, I-95 carries the traffic. Just past the congestion of the Palm Beaches, southbound RVers note how traffic thins a bit before mile marker 96. This is the Hobe Sound exit. A short drive east on State Road 708 connects to Highway 1 (locally called Federal Highway). There are no high-rises, crowded malls, or congestion here—just homey restaurants, a beautiful uncrowded beach, and thousands of acres of untouched nature preserves. Easy to find, easy to call home.
  2. Park Layout: Floridays has 84 generously-spaced sites with driver-side utility hookups, gravel interior access roads, and angle-in pads that can accommodate side rooms. Site lengths vary to accommodate different sized RVs and all have concrete patios. Our full-timers are assigned back-in sites, and overnighters or short-termers can request pull-throughs. We’re an old park under new management as of 2010, so we’re becoming a “new park,” one project at a time. We move slowly, because that’s what we do in Hobe Sound, and because we don’t want to disturb the lifestyle of our guests who choose us because we’re a quiet, safe, and friendly place to stay.
  3. Landscaping: Since 2010, hundreds of new plants have been planted and it’s beginning to make a huge difference in the park. New trees, shrubs and grasses are being used to create a park-like natural setting that closely matches Mother Nature’s ideas for this part of south Florida. Plantings give guests a sense of privacy and a measure of separation without blocking visual access between sites.
  4. Amenities: We have both 30- and 50-amp service and free Wi-Fi, and we don’t discriminate between fancy diesels and towables—love them both. The laundry and shower rooms are undergoing a major rebuild. Guests will enjoy 12 brand new sparkling washers and dryers and huge bath/shower facilities for men and women in late 2016. There are BBQs, bingo, and ping-pong tournaments. Potlucks and pizza nights. Spontaneous guitar strumming and organized open-mic nights.

RV Life Along Florida’s Gulf Stream

RV’ers who drive south for the winter often follow their GPS to Florida. Many find themselves along Florida’s Treasure Coast, and a few like it well enough to stay for awhile in Hobe Sound. Why? Florida, as a whole, has four basic climates ranging from humid subtropical to tropical savannah, interspersed with a rainy season, a dry season, and the possibility of tropic cyclones in the late summer and fall. And it all has to do with the Gulf Stream.

gulf stream mapBeginning in the Caribbean and ending in the North Atlantic, the Gulf Stream is one of the world’s most interesting weather phenomena. Powerful enough to be seen from space, its influence on Florida’s weather is profound. From its northwesterly trek across the Caribbean, the Gulf Stream takes a horseshoe curve through the Gulf of Mexico then runs eastward through the Florida Straits before turning sharply northward up the Atlantic coast as far as Cape Hatteras. It hugs the Florida coast from the Keys to the Treasure Coast, then gently veers to the east, further out into the ocean.

The Gulf Stream is why coastal regions remain moderate while Florida’s cotton and citrus groves on the interior of the state can experience relatively dramatic temperature shifts. Along the Treasure Coast, where Floridays RV Park is located, the mainland is shielded from the Atlantic Ocean by narrow sandbars and barrier islands that protect shallow lagoons, rivers, and bays; they provide perfect places to fish, kayak, and paddleboard.

The temperate climate is less volatile and warmer than Florida’s interior and produces an abundance of plant varieties and wildlife unusual for the area’s latitude. The dry season sets in around October and lasts until April. During this time, fronts sweep through the northern and central parts on a regular basis and freezes are rare but not impossible. Further south it’s dryer with those endless days of sunshine that give the state its motto as the Sunshine State.

The RV lifestyle in Florida is at its peak from December through May. But along Florida’s Treasure Coast, the climate is viewed by many to be reliably pleasant all year, making it a good home base for the RV lifestyle. We hope you follow your GPS to Hobe Sound and discover the advantages of Gulf Stream living.