Traveling Huntleys

Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.

Wildlife

Pigeon Forge & the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee: Waterfalls, Mingus Mill and Snow in April

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Last Updated: August 3, 2026

Pigeon Forge is a year-round tourist town in the western foothills of the Smoky Mountains — shows, shopping, bars, restaurants, go-karts, hiking, watersports, and the mountains themselves. There are simply too many things to see and do in a week. It is also the front door to the most visited national park in the United States, which is the reason we came, and the strip out front turns out to be a genuinely useful thing to have when the weather in the park goes sideways.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park with low clouds, Tennessee
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Hanna Park, Jacksonville, Florida: Oceanfront Camping, Boneyard Beach & the Historian Behind the Name

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Last Updated: August 2, 2026

Hanna Park is about 450 acres of mature coastal hammock at Mayport, in the Jacksonville Beaches area of northeast Florida. Its full name is Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park, and the name is worth pausing on rather than skimming past — more on her in a moment. Winthrop Bancroft donated the first five oceanfront acres to the City of Jacksonville in 1967 on the condition that the park carry her name; the city bought up adjoining land and the park opened in 1972.

Wide Atlantic beach and surf at Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park, Jacksonville, Florida
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Williston & Gainesville, Florida: Winter RVing, a Quarry Garden & the Butterfly Rainforest

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Last Updated: August 1, 2026

Williston was only an hour from Grand Oaks Resort, and this was our first time staying in this part of Florida’s heartland. We came specifically because it is close to Gainesville — and because after a month of coastline we wanted to see what the interior looked like.

Rowboat pulled up on the shore of a small lake at Williston Crossing RV Resort, Williston, Florida
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Grand Oaks Resort near Lady Lake, Florida: Combined Driving, Carriage History & RV Camping Among the Horses

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Last Updated: August 1, 2026

The Grand Oaks Resort is an RV park inside a working equestrian center — 400 acres at Weirsdale, Florida, just southeast of Ocala and a few minutes from Lady Lake and The Villages. We had stayed at this part of central Florida before and enjoyed it, so we came back for a week. From Ormond Beach it was only about a ninety-minute drive. We arrived to find a combined driving competition underway, which turned a pleasant week into a memorable one.

Single-horse marathon carriage driving through a water hazard with driver and groom aboard at a combined driving event, Grand Oaks Resort, Weirsdale, Florida
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Ormond Beach, Florida in January: Oceanfront Camping, Shorebirds & the Scenic Loop

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Last Updated: August 1, 2026

Ormond Beach sits on Florida’s Atlantic coast just north of Daytona Beach. We have stayed a little further north at Flagler Beach before and liked the stretch, so we came back to it. This time the weather had other ideas. A bitter, windy, wet storm sat on us for most of the week and we got perhaps two days of sunshine out of seven. We lost the daily beach walks we had been looking forward to — but we were given something else instead: a dramatic, grey, heaving Atlantic in full winter temper, twenty feet from where we were sitting. We never did get a photograph that did it justice. The day below was the nicest one we had.

Atlantic Ocean and open sky on the one clear day of a stormy January week at Ormond Beach, Florida
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Indian Mound Fish Camp, Oak Hill Florida: Dolphins, a SpaceX Launch & Merritt Island Spoonbills

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Last Updated: August 1, 2026

Indian Mound Fish Camp is a small RV park, marina and boat launch at Oak Hill, Florida, on the western shore of Mosquito Lagoon — the northern reach of the Indian River Lagoon system and part of the Intracoastal Waterway, about 35 miles north of Cape Canaveral. It is not a resort. It is a fish camp, which is exactly why we liked it: our site backed onto the water, dolphins hunted along the bank most mornings, and on a clear night we watched a rocket leave the planet from the folding chairs outside the Airstream.

Long stretch of completely empty Atlantic beach with dunes and open sky at Canaveral National Seashore beside Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Florida
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