Bienville Square in Mobile, Alabama, was an unexpected hive of activity. The TV cameras were busily filming, the historic fountain was flowing and the city’s landmark park was positively buzzing with energy on this Friday afternoon.
Sadly, it wasn’t in honour of our arrival in this charming location, but it was a major occasion, with the reopening of the 200-year-old Square after a four-year recovery from the ravages of Hurricane Sally in 2020. And it was easy to see why the locals were cock-a-hoop at the rebirth of their central icon. This gem of a park boasted graceful oak trees, elegant flowerbeds and the cast iron 1896 fountain, lovingly restored to former glories, making for an urban oasis of exquisite proportions.
Mobile itself also proved an enchanting discovery at the start of the final month of our grand year-long RV tour of the US. Established in 1701 as the capital of French Louisiana, it glittered with colonial heritage, full of historic districts that each seemed to have their own version of Bienville Square, an enticing mix of those twin 18th-century city icons Savannah in Georgia and New Orleans in Louisiana.
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We had arrived in Alabama from a blissful stopover on Biloxi Bay in neighbouring Mississippi, following the coastal road via Gautier and Pascagoula in the direction of our return to Florida. Home was still 500 miles away, but we were definitely on the final stage of our round-trip cross-country adventure.
Biloxi had proved an admirable host, with miles of easily accessible beachfront, wildlife-rich marshes and fabulous food. Our final meal had been courtesy of The Shed Barbecue & Blues Joint, a ramshackle collection of mismatched buildings, tin roofs and bric-a-brac that looked more like a roadside pile-up than a restaurant, but which served outrageously tasty barbecue ribs, pork and brisket to underline the state’s reputation for hickory-smoked goodness.
Our coastal route brought us to Gulf Shores, Alabama, and another exercise in unexpected beach bliss. From the distinctly RV-friendly Gulf State Park, we found ourselves at the centre of 32 miles of pure white sands that disappeared to the horizon both east and west, lapped by the shimmering blues of the Gulf of Mexico. To the east, Orange Beach offered high-rise resorts more typical of Florida, as well as exclusive Ono Island and its millionaire’s row of mansionesque homes, each with its own boathouse. To the west was the more prosaic extent of the barrier island, still with plenty of condos and other resort-style developments, but with less overt bling.
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The State Park was a treasure in itself, with miles of hiking and biking trails as well as a Nature Center, tennis and pickleball courts, the eye-catching 1,500-foot-long fishing pier – the second longest on the Gulf Coast – and campground activities that included organised games and live entertainment, most notably one evening with an open-air concert by a Gordon Lightfoot tribute act. Folk music in the folkiest of settings.
Gulf Shores was also ideal for exploring Alabama’s Coastal Connection, a 130-mile scenic byway that linked the golden barrier islands with Mobile via a winding route north through classic Southern territory, full of picture-postcard towns, nature preserves, fishing harbours and historic sites, like Fort Morgan, a fortress guardian of Mobile Bay dating back to 1834. We stopped in Fairhope for lunch and were treated to the freshly-made sandwiches and beignets of Two Sisters Bakery, set underneath two towering oak trees and with a delightful patio garden. Dinner in Mobile came from Callaghan’s Irish Social Club, with a very decent pint of Guinness and a blackened shrimp po’boy that was as good as anything we had in New Orleans.
As we reluctantly broke camp for the 78th time on our cross-country voyage, we felt we had left plenty of sight-seeing highlights unseen and, like South Padre Island in Texas, would be eager to return to this most pleasant of seaside settings.
We pointed our Winnebago east once more and, within eight miles, found ourselves passing from one beach-laden panorama to another as we hit Perdido Key, the first landmark on Florida’s ‘Panhandle’. This north-westerly region of the Sunshine State is basically an unbroken 160-mile succession of sand-fringed glories, with generous beach after generous beach, and our homeward route covered every inch of it. Using the boutique bolthole of the Hideaway Retreat RV park in Navarre as our base, we lapped up the vast, seemingly empty acres of Pensacola Beach, Santa Rosa Island and Destin, enjoying delicious milkshakes from Whataburger and a magnificent hefeweizen at Beach Camp Brewery, where the gumbo was equally tasty.
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The uber-pretty waterfront gem of the Retreat came with a genuine hideaway quality, situated under a canopy of mature oak and magnolia trees and with its own dog-friendly beachfront that quickly generated a laid-back evening routine of sitting on the seawall with a gin and tonic to witness yet another superb sunset. At the end of the week, we were ready to drop anchor permanently, but we had one final Panhandle location to investigate.
State capital Tallahassee is about as Floridian as the Channel Islands are French, as it is so geographically remote from the rest of the state (only 18 miles from neighbouring Georgia but 480 from Miami), but it has a stateliness no other Florida city can match. The free Historic Capitol Museum provided the unique history, from the original native peoples to the Spanish colonialists of the 17th century, US frontier territory in the early 19th century and statehood in 1845. We also toured the magnificent Wakulla Springs State Park, with its glass-bottom boat tours of the crystal clear springs, 6,000-acre wildlife sanctuary and 1930s gem of The Lodge, a stunning Art Deco masterpiece tucked away in rural splendour.
Coe Landing on Lake Talquin provided our RV home for two nights, another backwoods location that was practically silent at night and busy with fishermen during the day. Breakfast at Tallahassee’s Power Plant Café, with its signature smoothies and fresh-baked produce, was the ideal way to start the day, while dinner at stylish Hayward House gave traditional dishes – like their succulent chicken paillard – a modern makeover in memorable fashion.
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Finally heading south again, we decided if we were to finish our epic road trip in style, there was only one place we could count on for a grandstand finale after the 270-mile drive back to Central Florida. We have been writing about Walt Disney World for 30 years, but had never stayed at its RV-friendly Fort Wilderness Resort, a multi-purpose campground that is largely unknown to most day visitors. Tucked away in 750 wooded acres on the natural haven of Bay Lake, this offered a totally rustic location for road-weary decompression and reflection. We had covered more than 35,000 miles since we set out from home, 11,000 of those in our wonderfully accommodating Winnebago and almost 25,000 more in our trusty tow car. We had seen parts of the country few people see and experienced incredible friendliness virtually everywhere we went. We were exhilarated, and exhausted.
Fort Wilderness provided the perfect rest cure before we picked up the traces of our normal life once again. We shunned the frenzy of the four theme parks in favour of the resort’s rural walking trails, campfire programmes (which our faithful old lab, Ruthie, loved) and general sense of calm amid Orlando’s vast tourism empire. In the evening, we sipped Long Island Iced Teas on the rocking chairs of the porch at Crockett’s Tavern, and watched the boats heading back and forth to the Magic Kingdom from the pier set amid the white-sand beach. The pier also afforded perfect viewing of the theme park’s nightly fireworks, which we took as a personal salute to our 12-month journey.
We had come through an extraordinary year of travel experiences and arrived at the conclusion there is no better way to see America than from the front seat of an RV and the chance to take the road less travelled. Despite the setbacks and occasional breakdowns, we revelled in the sense of freedom of the open road and the magnificence of the National Parks and other scenic wonders. We would definitely do this again. Just not for a year!
How to do it
Final RV Factfile:
Total distance covered: 35,186 miles. RV parks and overnight stops: 83. States visited: 23. National Parks: 16.
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