Friends, Work & Chores While Exploring Charleston, SC – Campground at James Island County Park

After parting ways on the Delmarva while we attended a rendezvous of a different kind in New Bern, we had plans to meet back up with Nina & Paul in Charleston, SC for a bit on our southward repositioning.

We had never been before, but the location has been on our must-do list for quite a while.

And as the stars would align, our buddies Russ & Todd would be able to make the jaunt over from their home base in Atlanta in their new slick Roadtrek (previously they were full timers in a sweet Wanderlodge).

Perfect.. rendezvous in Charleston it was!  And while Charleston has an active boating community, we unfortunately had no candidate boats on our radar to view this visit.

This post covers October 30 – November 5.

The Campground at James Island County Park

There was no question in our mind where we wanted to stay if we were to ever visit Charleston – the reputation of James Island County Park is widespread. Conveniently located to Folly Beach, historic downtown Charleston and amenities abound.

It would be a perfect location to put down roots for a bit, attend to some chores and be amongst friends.

Only problem is? Getting a reservation for more than a couple nights can be a challenge. This place books up, and their reservation system is all by phone.

We called and made our request for a week to coincided with our buddies – and they got us a site for a few of the nights to start, and then put us on a waitlist for the remainder of the time.

A few days later, we had a voicemail that they had a site for us – we just had to call by 3pm the next day to confirm it. We really appreciated the awesome customer service.

Which is indicative of how the entire campground is run.

I have to say, this place is an awesome meshing of the ‘in nature’ feel we love about state parks with the amenities of a ‘RV Resort’.

From full hook-up sites, fully stocked campstore (complete with a fart-bazooza you can purchase in the toy section), well kept sites, laundry, abundant walking/biking trails and an overall friendly atmosphere.  Only thing missing? Hot tub tubs.

Of course, this all comes with a price. Back-in sites start at $43/night and pull-thru sites at $49 (plus taxes). The only site they could get us for our dates was a pull-thru site, which came out to nearly $400 for our week long stay. Definitely a splurge for us.

Many of the sites in the park are simply awesome. Some are less than ideal – such as the many shared ‘buddy sites’ (great if you’re parked with your buddy, intrusive if not).  The pull through site we got assigned (61) was on the crappy-side for us.

Unlike many of the pull-thrus in the park which offer ample space and privacy – ours was cut into a corner, with the porch being right along the street. As our office windows are on the passenger side, it’s rather distracting for us to be facing a street – so our preference is always to have our office windows facing nature.

Instead of letting it bother us the entire time, we decided to forgo using our full hook-ups (we really don’t need them anyway) and orchestrated a rather tricky move to get ourselves turned around in our site.

With our windows facing the luscious trees on the backside of our site – we achieved at least the pretense of privacy and distraction free work days.  Which greatly improved our stay, but quite annoying to be paying for a ‘premium’ site.

Exploring with Friends

By our very nature, we are homebodies – and will happily stay at home enjoying our immediate local surroundings. What we love about meeting up with friends, is we get inspired to get out more than normal.

And Charleston provides a great backdrop for exploring!

We spent a day wandering around historic downtown Charleston with the gang, exploring nooks and crannies, the waterfront, little shops and quaint dining.

We also spent an afternoon on the beach in search of lighthouses.

But most of our exploring was actually right out our door – the park itself. You see, James Island County Park is renowned for its holiday light festival, and they were putting on the finishing touches while  we were there for their grand opening.

In the evenings, they were doing test runs – which meant us campground patrons got to explore it without the crowds. Pretty awesome!

Chores & Work

Life on the road for us is not a vacation, which means our days are usually balanced with work hours and typical life chores.

Kiki was due for her annual exam and vaccinations, and since she’s a member of Banfield’s Wellness Program, Charleston made a fantastic opportunity to take advantage of one of their stand alone clinics being just a couple miles from the campground. (Usually Bandfields are inside of Petsmarts).

The staff was excellent (thanks guys!), and she got a clean bill of health with the normal caveat of ‘she could stand to loose some weight’.

Work was also a focus for us. Aside from our normal news reporting and helping our members over at RVMoblieInternet.com – our mobile app Coverage? was way overdue for an update.

RVMobileInternet now consumes all of our work hours (we’re so ever blessed it also provides us funding to support that time investment) – that we find it near impossible to keep up with some of our side projects.

We’ve actually been working in the background for a while to forge some new partnerships to help out.

We’ve solidified a partnership with Mosaik Solutions for our coverage map overlays, which will free up time for us to move the app forward.

We’ve also teamed up with Hired Guns Software, a fellow full timer to take over primary development of all of our apps. Which means, a re-write of Coverage? is now underway and an Android version is likely after the first of the year (finally!). Overdue updates to State Lines and US Public Lands will be forthcoming as well.

We’re super excited to have finally put these pieces together to ensure the long term sustainability of the apps.

What’s Up Next?

After Charleston we made a visit to dear friends near Savannah, and then retreated to Crooked River State Park in southern Georgia for more boat shopping and catching up.

We’re now inbound to Florida, where we’ll likely be for the winter as we shift focus to holidays with family and boat shopping. Our first stop will be at an old favorite, then we’re off to Spring Hill and Melbourne through the end of the year.

We’re snagging some last minute cancellations at state parks in spots where we can easily get to all coasts of Florida for boat viewings for the first of the year.