Living the Florida Snowbird Life

Living in Florida during the winter as a Canadian is truly living the stereotypical life of a snowbird. We have become one of the many Canadians who flock to Florida to escape the cold and dreary winters north of the border. I have always heard about this but I never knew what it looked like in practice.

One thing I’ve learned is that, often, where you visit in the winter depends on where you live in Canada. Most of the Canadians we’ve met here in Florida are from Ontario or Quebec. Most of the retirees we know from Alberta who winter in the US, do so in Palm Springs or Arizona. The Ontarians we’ve met love to explain to the Americans that Alberta is further from Ontario than Florida is (since they often think we must be practially neighbors).

Canadian pride is in full force in the parks as well. We have seen many, many Canadian flags and lots of US/Canadian flags. Also, our RV park in Orange City listed most signs in both English and French because of the large Quebecois population.

Over the weeks, I’ve realized that there is a reason so many people make the migration. Florida is warm and the snowbird RV parks are FUN. Ours current park in Haines City, FL has multiple activities each and every day. These activities range from aquacize to community campfires to pancake dinners. On the day we arrived, we enjoyed pancakes and sausage for dinner for $4.75 total for the 2 of us. It was delicious and we had a blast meeting all of our neighbors.

This week, we have a community picnic tomorrow, BINGO tomorrow night and $2 banana splits on Wednesday night….and those are just the activities we want to go to this week. We are skipping multiple events per day. Later this month there will be a pig roast, a strawberry shortcake social, quilting, crocheting, crafting, a community garage sale and more. These people have PACKED social schedules!

When we’re not attending activities, we hang out at the trailer either indoors or out. We have a little trail that cows walk down behind our RV spot. Evan and Cooper both think the cows are intriguing. Evan likes to feed them and Cooper likes to bark insanely at them.

Everyone we have met has been truly interested in meeting us and hearing our story. As I walk Cooper, people stop, say hi and chat. It’s like living in a small town with a really good social committee. Plus, it is only 20 minutes from Disney. I must admit that I love it. I’ve already told Dewey that I want to be a snowbird when I grow up. So far, he’s ignoring the pictures of the park models for sale…..but he can’t hold out forever!