The Siren Call Of The Snowbird | I Heart RVing
Big Pine Key RV in Florida’s Lower Keys is something of a camper fantasy. Beautiful, spectacular, and shamelessly natural. Campsites line the waterfront. Just seven miles out from deep water fishing and 30 miles east of Key West, every day offers an ocean of possibility. Turn the page and see why its call is impossible to resist.
Big Pine Key RV is more than an escape. More than a resort. More than a marina. It’s a song that beckons the heart of every wanderer.
Playing the Right Key
IMAGINATION STIRS THE WANDER IN US.
Mundane life might attempt to make us captive to its reality—where we’re subject to subfreezing Winter temperatures or stuck in sluggish work cycles—but we can imagine a better way to chill.
Somewhere as far south as the road will take us. Somewhere with saltwater breezes and night skies full of stark-naked stars. Somewhere where you can catch your breath at last. Somewhere like the Florida Keys. Dropping like an anchor between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, your RV can take you there—plunging the weight of reality into waves of warm fantasy. Among the Keys, there’s a different rhythm of life.
The music of the ocean is everywhere. And that siren song has long made the archipelago a haven for renowned writers and reclining artists like Ernest Hemingway and Wallace Stevens. After all, when aquamarine water surrounds you and a warm limitless sky covers you, how can you help but relax? That far-away continental shore— with all its baggage—takes on a theatrical distance. It simply floats away. Like an ill-formed melody happily forgotten. Past a crescendo of mile markers that drive you into the open sea, your windows
come down. The air warms. Ideas of order blur, and you’re ready. Ready at last to pull into the tranquil, tropical welcome of Big Pine Key RV.
A Sky Bigger Than Life
The journey to the Florida Lower Keys is a gift in its own right. There is so little that compares. The Overseas Highway—aka U.S. Highway 1—casts a lean, two-lane line of road out into the Atlantic. Suddenly, with your RV hugging the narrow pavement and shallow jeweled water passing beneath you, the sky becomes bigger than life. Savannah Shafer, the community manager at Big Pine Key RV, laughs, almost songlike as she relates, “It reminds me of that old Dixie Chicks song ‘Wide Open Spaces.’ It has a major wow factor.” The sights are so arresting that it’s common for visitors to pull their RV over along the way to simply take it in. Savannah understands completely, describing in a stop-start way. “You’re gonna see a lot of people just—they can’t keep driving—they have to stop.” The Keys can do that. They have a unique ability to captivate.
While some destinations may draw you in with a boundless buffet of amenities, endless entertainment, and plastic pastimes, the Keys have a different agenda. Here, nature shines. History resides. The water calls. Nature does its landscaping, with tangled mangroves, silver-haired buttonwoods, and fine coral limestone dust trails. Needless to say, if you can arrange it, arrive in daylight. Hopping from key to key, you’ll remain on the Overseas Highway for an hour and 45 minutes (not including stops, of course). Even driving out in the water, intriguing relics of history can be seen. Just prior to reaching Big Pine Key, on your driver’s side, you can look out the window into the waves and see the 1912, oldtruss Bahia Honda Railroad Bridge, with its ruins lying in the water like a fallen titan. Just a little further across the sea, two keys away, is Big Pine Key RV, calling you in.
A Rare Resort of Wild Beauty
Immediately on crossing onto Big Pine Key, you’ll spy the RVs parked along the resort’s waterfront. The first left turn lands you directly in front of an unmistakable two-story building with a bridge that goes over to a second-story swimming pool. Built in 1959, it’s steeped in local history. Purchased by Cove Communities a few years back, it’s attentively cared for. Complete with a boat canal, the resort bustles with fishermen and swimmers. As new Winter guests arrive and step out of their vehicles, Savannah says that it’s impossible not to notice how relieved they are. “For those who come from the North down here, when they walk out of their rig, it is so funny. It’s almost consistently like a groan! You know that they’ve just come from whatever negative temperatures, and they’ve finally arrived.”
Savannah knows what’s next too. “In no time, the pool is full of people in bikinis. They are here to get their tan. Here to get their lobster.” They’ve come to the right place. Entering the front office and store, the whole vibe trills with the relaxed swagger of beach rustics. The store is filled with fishing tackle mail and boat fuel. Desk clerks check folks in behind a standing desk. And Savannah notes that the staff “can usually tell the way that someone walks in the room what they’re here for.” Whatever you’re there for, an escort will go and assist you in getting into your site, answering any questions you may have, and making sure your utilities work. The RV park has 173 sites, many with boat slips, including 19 premium spots. Very quickly, you’ll see that the resort in many ways embodies the Keys—in its care for nature, respect for history, and passion for the water. The sites are simple and wide open.
And those who stay absolutely love it. There are remote workers and homeschooling families staying for the season. And of course, there are the fishermen, snorkelers, divers, and kayakers. Many come mid-December through March when the ocean breeze graciously reduces humidity and brushes away noseeums (biting midges). But nature, in its more pleasant forms, is also a big part of the identity of the RV park. Big Pine Key RV is uniquely nestled into a wildlife preserve, the National Key Deer Refuge. It’s quiet and peaceful with few neighbors. Not including, of course, the key deer. Savannah points out, “They walk right in. Even right up to you.” And because of that, guests are taught how to behave around the local wildlife.
Welcome to what it’s like! Everybody says that!
Savannah explains, “The history of this park has been this dance with officials, wildlife, and even natural disasters. This place has been sensitive to that and been a help. It makes our park unique.” Part of that sensitivity is that around half of the park is zoned as protected land. Which means that half of the park offers dry camping sites. Savannah says, “You can tent camp. Solar camping is huge. I feel like we are one of the only private camping locations— that I’m aware of—that really wants to celebrate the fact that we can take in large rigs that are solar and give them a tent camping price.” Savannah adds with a smile, “That’s actually what drew me personally!
My husband and I and our six kids, we lived on solar power for three months here. And we were not the only ones by far.” Her family stayed in a totally redone 1986 Fleetwood Prowler. They stayed three months, but they didn’t plan to originally. “Rustic more than any other part of our park is known for ‘Let’s add on another week … Let’s add on another week.’ And I remember when I was here as a guest saying that. They were like, ‘Welcome to what it’s like! Everybody says that!’ ” Her voice slows and grows pensive, “You get here, and you just can’t leave. Because you see every star. It’s so quiet. It’s a special place.” And there’s more to discover outside the RV park— no matter which direction you head, land or sea.
Hidden Coves and Historic Bike Trails
Somehow, for all its bulk of landmass, the continental part of our country can often feel so crowded. How ironic that Florida’s Lower Keys do not. Lapped by an expansive ocean, the waves issue a daily invitation. Deep-sea fishermen, divers wielding spears, and webfooted swimmers with their snorkels—all covered in sun—radiate out each day into the blue-green surf that calls them. And they return with fresh catches, impaled trophies, and dripping smiles. The seasoned sea dog and the novice alike are welcome here. Charters abound to initiate the curious guest. And they’re not for fishing alone. There are charters to kayak among mangroves, sandbar charters, and adventure charters to explore every cranny of the island. But every camper knows that the best adventures involve an element of discovery.
Few places play hide-and-seek like Big Pine Key. Sure, there are the go-to, easy-to-find, even-easier-to-enjoy spots—starting with Winn Dixie at Big Pine Key Plaza. Nearby, there’s the Big Pine Key Flea Market with its eatery and local fish fry. Restaurants are almost all brought to you by the letter K, from the Florida Keys Cafe (a local favorite) and Boondocks (a tiki bar and draft house with miniature golf) to Kiki’s Sandbar (a waterfront bar & grille). Cyclists can park their bikes at Winn-Dixie and catch the bus for Key West to get a taste of Caribbean culture, an hour-and-a-half ride away.
But if you really like to spin wheels, you can even island-hop by bike on the spectacular and historic Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail. (It takes about three hours to bike to Key West from Big Pine Key.) Still, no need to exert yourself to find adventure. Local treasures might be just under your nose—but hidden. Savannah shares two of her favorites. “We have the Blue Hole, which is an old quarry where the alligators have taken residence. They stay in there.” Even so, Savannah, a mother of six, laughs and says, “Hold onto your kids. I remember thinking, ‘There’s no barrier!’” Long ago, the shady quarry used to be a swimming hole—but not anymore. Now, the draw is spotting gators (there’s a nice observation deck) and hiking the trails around this cool reptilian dive.
Then there’s the No Name Pub. Savannah says, “You gotta go at least once.” Describing how to get there quickly turns into a stream-of-consciousness narrative that’s almost impossible to follow. “It’s one of those restaurants: Have fun trying to find it. It literally is a hidden restaurant. If someone were to say, ‘How do I get there?’ I’d say, ‘Umm … You’d have to go right at the first light, go all the way down that road, then you have to turn left, go right, go left, go around that, go around that, before the bridge, to the left—you may miss it! You’ll be surprised how big it is inside.’ It’s one of those places.” Once you get there though, the instructions get simpler: Order the pizza, says the mother of six. After all, exploration is hungry work.
The Irresistible Call to Return
There are special places in the world that leave their imprinton us. The kind of feeling that doesn’t wash away over time, but rather deepens and almost becomes part of who we are. As RVers, we know this better than anyone else. Which is why the draw to Big Pine Key is not singular. It’s cyclical, like the chorus of a familiar Sold by SalVinCo LLC Edge of the map song. Like remembered poetry that almost spills from our lips by pure reflex. Cooking breakfast on any given morning at the RV park, you see the sun rise. Doing dishes, from your window, you watch people throwing their nets into the sea. You hear the rumbling motors of boats pressing out into the morning tide and expanse of reef, the sound of swim fins slapping against the ground. The lines between campground and marina are happily blurred in this haven where seeing a Class A tow a boat is mere common fare. You don’t forget places like this. Savannah knows that in a
deep way.
She fell in love as a faithful guest long before she ever worked here. And, one of three consecutive women to help run the resort, she takes pride in continuing to nurture the culture that drew her in. A culture that felt like more than a campground. She confesses that, even as a manager now, walking back toward her old family campsite still fills her with this sense of longing. A drawing back. And she’s not alone. “Those who have heard of the place love it. And they continue to come back. I’m talking—grandma brought us; and now my parents brought us; and I’m an adult now, and I’m bringing our kids here. There is no other place to go in their minds. This place transcends generations.” So, fellow wanderer: beware, lest you hear the keener sounds, the recursive notes of that salt-sprayed RV park at Big Pine Key. Because no matter what reality you go back to, an irresistible call from the island will forever beckon: Return.
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