The term “Spring Break” tends to bring mental images to some people of rowdy college students celebrating the end of winter on select Florida beaches. As someone who worked in higher education, I learned the beaches to avoid if you simply want to spend some relaxing time along Florida’s Gulf Coast during that timeframe.
Knowing where to make reservations and actually getting into those campgrounds are two different things. It seemed to us that a large number of people thought camping was the perfect activity during the COVID pandemic. We saw a news story that said more than 1.1 million new RVs were sold during 2021 and nearly half of those were sold to first time RV owners.It appeared to us that they bought their RVs and immediately started making camping reservations.
Seasoned RV'ers know that making campground reservations has always been a challenge. The COVID inspired camp boom only made getting reservations harder and more frustrating.
Our favorite state parks along the Gulf Coast appeared to be booked through the next millennium. That was when we started looking at military FamCamps as an option.
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| Sign at the entrance of Destin Army FamCamp |
What is a FamCamp? They are campgrounds operated by the U.S. Military for servicemen and women currently on active duty, retired from the military or for veterans who have a VA documented service connected disability noted on their VA Health ID Cards.
According to the VA, less than ten percent of American adults served in the military, less than 17 percent of that population made it to retirement and only ten percent of all veterans received a service connected disability. On face value, these statistics make it sound as if there are FamCamp sites galore for everyone eligible. That is misleading because there are not that many FamCamps out there.
Yes, we are currently in a FamCamp in Destin, Florida, and it is associated with Fort Benning in Georgia. That Fort is a major training base for Airborne and infantry soldiers. It also houses the National Infantry Museum in Georgia. Maybe that is why this park was called the Destin Army Infantry Recreation Campground. Since this FamCamp was more than 200 miles from Fort Benning, it qualified as “outside the gate” meaning we didn’t have to pass base security to get to our site.
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| The gate is very different from the ones seen on military bases |
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| Check-in Office |
When I think of the terms “Army Infantry,” thoughts of foxholes and being outside in the elements come to my mind. I guess my expectations were low going into this campground. I may have to adjust my thinking about FamCamps with “infantry” in their names.
If you look at some of the online reviews of this campground, a reoccurring theme is that it has tight spaces. We had to ask the people in a neighboring site to move his Jeep so that we could back into our site. Yes, tight sites is an accurate description for this park.
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| Rosie in the campground |
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| View of the campground |
Another point frequently made in the reviews is about this park's amenities and how well it is maintained. You can check those boxes because the campground, playgrounds, swimming pools and children's splash pad are all first class. We were impressed with how well the staff kept things clean and in working order.
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| Splash pad for children |
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| The swimming pool |
While the campground is on the bay, we didn’t find a good beachfront there. There were several public beaches nearby to satisfy any urge to walk along the shore. There was a pier and a marina where you could rent water crafts.
We were glad we brought our bikes to this campground. We enjoyed riding them around Destin. We also brought our kayak, but noticed it needed to be repaired before trusting it in the water.
We spotted what appeared to be several park traditions. A group of retired soldiers would gather every afternoon for what they called the “Commander’s Call,” military jargon for discussing important issues and giving recognition of outstanding accomplishments. I’m confident that world problems were being solved in those meetings.
Sunsets were the other park tradition. People would start gathering along the sea wall every evening about 15 minutes before sunset to watch the spectacular colors across the sky. It was easy to see that that no one participating in that tradition was dissatisfied.
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| Sunset from Destin Army Recreation Center |
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| Sunset |
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| Enjoying Sunset |
We saw what appeared to be a higher number than expected of young families with small children in this park. That indicated to us that soldiers on active duty were there over Spring Break. There were multiple playgrounds and fun things for children in this park.
Here are some specifics about this campground:
- There was one loop in the campground
- Our site was a back-in
- Most sites could be classified as "full sun" as trees were few and far apart
- A few sites had shade, including our's
- Most sites had very little space on both sides
- Our site was paved with concrete and we needed to use leveling tools to correct a slight side-to-side lean in Rosie, our Airstream trailer.
- Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service
- Our site had a water connection
- Our site had a sewer connection
- There were multiple trash dumpsters positioned around this campground
- There was a bathhouse in the campground. It was clean and maintained
- There was a good laundry room in this campground
- The park provided good WiFi service
- AT&T provided 2 bars of 4G voice and data service over our campsite
- We were able to watch CBS, CW, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were Dabl and ION
- The park provided a Cable-TV connection
- There were restaurants and shopping nearby
- This was a pet friendly park
My wife’s sister and her husband were camping about 50 miles away from this campground. We were able to meet midway for lunch and to catch up.
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| Sisters (and hubs) eating lunch |
We had two scary moments in this park. The first dealt with Rosie's door and the other was weather related.
The door handle slipped off its gears trapping us inside Rosie on our second day in the park. We were able to use our limited tools inside Rosie to unlatch the door. We figured that the outside door latch still worked and we could have called the office and asked them to send someone to open the door from the outside if we were unsuccessful in opening the door from inside Rosie.
What caused the door latch to fail? There are three screws that hold everything together. Two loosened without me noticing and that allowed the handle gears to jump off track. The lesson learned from this is to keep an eye on the door latch screws to make sure they are snug.
Weather was the second issue. There was a strong line of thunderstorms accompanied by 30-40 mph winds gusting to 65 mph. The rain was possibly the heaviest we have ever heard inside Rosie. From the debris on the ground in the park, it was a severe storm. There were tornado warnings during this storm around us and the news reported several tornados near us. We were grateful that Rosie kept us dry and safe, but we were ready to evacuate to the laundry building if the tornado sirens went off.
This FamCamp was a pleasant surprise and we enjoyed our stay there.
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| A visitor on the campground's pier |
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| Getting ready for a bike ride |
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| Another sunset photo |
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| Selfie along the seawall |
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| Dolphin playing in the water |
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| There was a pirate ship near the park |
