"Sunbirding"

[Reach]

If you can mix & match your time away, a month to 6 weeks with parents is a nice opportunity while you still can. We have been doing this for over a decade for many of the reasons you mention, recently helping them out with a move and financial planning. We live outside of the USA and I always appreciate that we have had much more time with them than when we were working in the same country.

The stay can be pretty easy going. We give each other space as well as sharing in each others' routines. I also get to connect with siblings and old friends on a regular basis. 4-6 weeks is just enough for a good visit, but short enough to be able to leave before getting sucked into anything too much.

 

[samcat]

My grandparents used to leave Florida at the end of July and spend the month of August at an RV park in Michigan. They had an Airstream. They would go to a city where they lived for 30 years so had friends and family nearby.

 

[NXR7]

Typical private owned campground rate is $50-100+/night for short term stays. Monthly rates depend on location and season; typically you also have elec billing on long term. . State parks are more in $25-40/night range. Most state parks have a 2 week limit for vacationers.

The work for most host type is not real strenuous or stressful. It's still time, but not much more than basic low skill type work.

Nailed it. The other issue is that camping and campgrounds are more seasonal the further north you go. We're in Ohio and it's about impossible to get summer weekend spots unless you schedule the instant the reservations open. State parks are even more difficult. That's because the working families can only get out camping Friday through Sunday so they reserve early. Sundays through Thursdays usually have more availability.

 

[engineernerd]

Whatever kind of tour you run in FL, I recommend researching similar tours in places that might be of interest to you for your summer respites. Having to work is not so bad if it's just for a couple of months, IMHO. If it's life-threateningly bad, just bail, right? It's not like you desperately need their positive job reference.

Topic switch: my spouse and I have had a very positive experience buying a used Cruise America motor home. We were lucky to buy it (2015 model) in fall 2019, before COVID caused prices to skyrocket, but prices have come down again since then and it's probably an OK time to buy again. It's budget-friendly and logical in the sense that most individual RV owners only use their RVs a little each year so individually-owned RVs tend to "age out" with very low mileage - whereas the Cruise America rentals are only a few years old with high mileage. Ours has had annoyances (loose cooktop and microwave making noise while driving down the road) but reliability has been great so far.

Another topic switch: summers west of the Rockies are low-humidity, which you should try out if you haven't yet. Unfortunately wildfire smoke has been marring that joy in the last few years.

 

[bearkeley]

We love our Florida home in the summer, but it's too cold and dark for us in the winter so we head south...another type of sunbirds! Since we travel about 6 months a year, we house sit to help offset costs and to get our dog or cat 'fix'. We love animals so housesitting has worked well for us. It works very much like online dating. Homeowners post an ad, you create a profile and apply to a sit that fits your interest and availability. We have house sat in the US, Europe, but mostly in Australia. Checkout trustedhousesitters.com. They offer insurance options but fortunately for us, never had a need for it.

 

[roenie64]

As I start my 4th year FIREd, I'm enjoying summers less here in FL. I remain active but once I shower for the day, I'm inside and feel a bit shut in. Add in many working friends are traveling etc and the bike tours drying up and it's becoming the lull in my year and I notice I get a bit of reverse SAD. Who'dathunk?

I'm thinking I'd like to leave for a couple months during the summer and trying to figure out how I might go about that in a budget friendly manner (=<$100/day). I don't need to go someplace "cool" but mountains and north or even northwest do appeal. It would be neat to set up camp in a locale for a while and "live like a local" and hopefully make some connections that one doesn't make "fast traveling."

Some thoughts I've had so far:

Long term visit with my folks: Pros, cheap and time with family, could get somewhat plugged in socially and this might help when I end up "stuck" there helping them/dealing with medical/estate stuff in the future. Cons, don't really like the area, potential family conflict stress (breaking of routines of both me and them -now when I visit I just do their thing but would want to live my life a bit more on a longer stay), less novelty.

Housesitting: Not sure how to get into a good arrangement, insurance/liability issues.

Summer Job somewhere (AK?): Pros, if find the right one (like the tours I do here) would be fun and offset some of the cost, social connections with other seasonal workers? Cons, *have* to work. Scams?

RV (Class B): Pros, easier to slow travel, can boondock some to offset costs, if money was no object this would be my #1 choice, ability to maintain routines easier (diet/exercise). Cons, still seem way overpriced and stretch the budget, concern buying a lemon especially a late model used that was slapped together even cheaper than normal during the pandemic.

I'm in the brainstorming mode and don't know where this will go but always appreciate the collective wisdom of this community and welcome your thoughts and suggestions for other options I may not have considered. FYI, renting out my place to offset costs is not an option I'd consider.

Thanks!

For house sitting, look into Trusted House Sitters. You watch peoples homes that may or may not have pets. We use it on the homeowners side. We have had a number of people come and stay at our home. The shortest we had was 2 days and the longest was 5 weeks, but speaking with the house sitters, they have had stays that lasted many months. It is international, so there are places in the States as well as around the world. It is also affordable- $150 - $300 a year. Al the best!

 

[Flyfish1]

We met some lovely people who sunbird in Long Island, NY to be near family. They used to rent an apt., but could only get one year rental agreements so they now stay in a long term hotel during the months they visit. Not my cup of tea, but they seemed happy.

 

[Badger]

I understand the desire to escape the heat in Florida summer. For decades I/we existed on a teacher income so we had to save for the summer when there were no paychecks. That is when we packed up the old VW bus and headed north into Maine and Canada on the few dollars we were able to save. A few times we headed to the south west and roasted but we wanted to see the country. We would always travel with camping gear including tent. Later years there were a couple of times we found an inexpensive flight and flew to a distant destination (like Washington, Oregon, or Alberta Canada and rented a car while the camping gear flew with us.
Since you mentioned camping then why not head north and use the National and State Parks and Forests. Some have a small fee while others are free. Nothing quite like waking up in the cool morning and watching the eagles soar or whales in the ocean while you sip on a cup of coffee.

 

[Wincherr]

I have met two different couples that do the trusted housesitting thing mentioned from others. They love it. They just arrange them in advance and travel from one place to another for a couple months. The only cost is the annual fee. Like others have said, sometimes it involves taking care of pets and sometimes it doesn’t.

 

[2tswhite]

We've used Trusted Housesitters and have had excellent house/pet sitters from all across the country, It does have a yearly fee but the lodging is free for the sitter. We lived in the Boston area when we were members.