Thousand Trails Peace River Preserve

Thousand Trails & NACO Peace River Preserve in Wauchula, Florida
We visited this park on February 8, 2015, and stayed for 14 day(s).

Some love Thousand Trails Peace River park. Others hate it. It depends on what you want out of the experience. We’ll have stayed for two weeks on three different occasions before we leave Florida this year, so we’ve obviously found something we like about it.

This is a rustic RV park, nestled along the banks of the Peace River. The park is divided into an upper section with 30 and 50 AMP, full hook-up sites, and a lower section, closer to the water, with only water and 30 AMP service. So far, we’ve been blessed to land in the full hook-up sites immediately upon check-in, but the usual routine during this high use season is to begin in the water/electric only section, then participate in a daily lottery until your name is drawn to move to a full hook-up site. We were prepared to do that, but arrived at just the right time to get an unclaimed full hook-up site.

The upper section is fully wooded, while the lower is largely open. But aside from the lack of full hook-ups, the only real drawback from my point of view, is that the lower section doesn’t dry out after a rain … and we’ve had lots of rain. A few rigs had to be towed out because the ground was too saturated to hold them up. Many of the lower sites are a rutted mess right now.

But on to the good points: There’s a very warm swimming pool and hot tub, a clean laundry room adjacent to them (with the ability to pay by credit card for washers and dryers), plenty of activities for all ages, and friendly folks throughout the park. Also important to us: it’s big rig friendly. A nature path along the river makes for interesting wildlife viewing, and we’ve seen Great Blue Herons, Egrets, Ibis, Turkey Vultures, Black Headed Vultures, Rough Shouldered Hawks, Ospreys, an Eastern Painted Turtle, and a seven-foot alligator.

Wauchula has two grocery stores – a County Market and a Winn-Dixie, plus a Walmart, an Ace Hardware, and a Tractor Supply. There’s not a lot to choose from for restaurants or nightlife outside the park, but Sebring is only 25 minutes away, and there’s plenty of both available there.

We also took side trips to visit Highland Hammock State Park and Myakka River State Park. The former has several boardwalk-type walking trails through scenic swampland. Myakka offers airboat and tram rides for wildlife viewing, and also has several walking/hiking trails. Both parks are worthy of an extended visit.