We left the rat race behind for a life of full time RVing

While wintering in Florida during 2022, we spent a week and a half at the Peace River RV & Camping Resort, a Thousand Trails campground in Wauchula. After staying two weeks at Thousand Trails Orlando, the campground in rural Wauchula—far removed from the city traffic, strip malls and the attractions at Disney World—was a nice change of pace. 

The drive from Orlando to Wauchula took us through Florida’s interior, markedly different than the coasts. Here there is mile upon mile of sprawling cattle ranches and orange groves as far as the eye can see. 

The campground in Peace River has a large network of nature trails around the property. The trails cut through a jungle-like landscape. As you walk you can see where feral hogs have rooted up large stretches of soil along the trails. Their tracks often lead into the woods where there are wild orange and lemon trees scattered about.

The big draw for the campground is hunting Peace River fossils. The Peace River runs alongside the campground property. The gravelly beds in the river are chock full of Miocene Epoch (5–20 million years ago) fossils. Much of the land around Wauchula once lay underneath a shallow sea, and today you can easily pull out dozens of fossils in an afternoon of sifting through the rocks and sand. 

Though the campground is “in the middle of nowhere,” it only takes a bit over an hour of driving to reach either coast. We took a sight-seeing drive to Bradenton one day during our stay and we also drove to Vero Beach.

On the negative side of our stay, don’t let the name of the campground fool you—this is no resort! Most campsites consist of you just parking your rig in a field. Plus, there are only a handful of sewer sites available and there is a lottery system in place to get them. Not having sewer would be less of an issue if the honey wagon service ran more often. There is actually a waiting list to have your tanks pumped out. We had to wait six days for a pump out!

Another drawback to Peace River Thousand Trails is that unless you have a sewer site, you only have 30-amp electric service. Even in February, it got up into the high-80s most days and we needed to run both of our air conditioning units. We were able to do so, but had to be careful with electricity usage so that we didn’t trip the breaker.

Overall, we had a great stay. We had fun hunting fossils, picking wild oranges, hiking on the trails, playing pickleball, and more. The campground staff does a good job with activities and there is a farmers market on Friday and food trucks throughout the week.