Daytona Beach

We arrived in Florida in December 2018, and began our winter stay in the state with a month long visit to Daytona Beach, located along Florida’s Atlantic coast. Daytona Beach is 51 miles northeast of Orlando, 86 miles southeast of Jacksonville, and 242 miles northwest of Miami. It is a medium size city with a population of around 61,000, and is known for the Daytona International Speedway which hosts the Daytona 500 NASCAR race each February.

The mild temperatures allowed us to be outdoors a lot, and we were able to get a good feel for the area on our bikes, by taking walks, playing a round of golf, a visit to a State Park, a beach, a wildlife refuge, and a lighthouse. Everywhere in Florida, there are birds – spectacular birds! Pink birds, white birds, prehistoric looking birds, eagles, little birds, water birds, big birds, song birds.

Ponce Inlet is a town located on the southern tip of a beach peninsula, south of Daytona Beach. Here we enjoyed a lighthouse, marinas, beaches, a pier…and birds.

Tomoka Park is a 2,000-acre Florida State Park located along the Tomoka River, where Native Americans once lived. We enjoyed the nature trail, the history…and the birds.

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge spans 140,000 acres with over 1000 species of plants, 117 species of fish, 68 amphibians and reptiles, 31 mammal species, and…330 different birds.

Here are some pictures taken over our month in Daytona Beach. 

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (2019)

Although we live and travel in our 5^th wheel trailer full time, sometimes we are planted somewhere for several weeks or months, and other times we take a cross country trek where we don’t stay anywhere for very long at all. In June 2018 we set out on one of those longer treks, this one taking us from California to New York, down to Florida, then back to California over the course of 12 months. From June through October we were really on the move, rarely staying anywhere longer than a week, but starting in November we slowed down, with a month long stay in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This was our second visit to Myrtle Beach, and in fact, we stayed in the same campground (Lakewood Camping Resort) when we were here in 2014, also during the month of November, but only for a week, then.

We were lucky enough to be here once again for the annual Beach Ride event sponsored by the American Heart Association. This event attracts over 1000 participants (and their horses!) annually, and is the largest trail ride on the beaches of South Carolina. For several days we were surrounded by horses and their companions as they held parades, participated in beach rides, set up vendor booths, and sponsored big community campfires. To see great pictures of this event, you can check out my blog post from 2014 here:  Myrtle Beach Visit 2014

Our 2018 visit to Myrtle Beach was very mellow. We took walks on the beach, and walks around the sprawling resort. We enjoyed the wide variety of birds and liked to watch them as they waded in the water, or ran along the beach, always in search of food. The weather was very cool, which didn’t encourage as much outdoor activity as we would have liked, but we did get out for a couple rounds of golf. All in all, it was a quiet month, a time to recharge our batteries and enjoy the beautiful Atlantic Coast.