Road-tripping in a sweet mobile home in Alabama
Take an RV on a journey to Alabama's natural and historical sights
Sitting with a glass of wine, I gazed over a deceivingly serene vista. I had parked my RV on the edge of a lake that was glassy on the surface – but actually full of alligators. This was the Gulf State Park, our most southern stop on a road trip through Alabama, and it was almost time to go home. After 10 days my husband and I had become old hands at this mobile home lark, and we may have fallen a little bit in love with life on the road.
We picked up our five-berth RV from a Cruise America depot just outside of Atlanta in Georgia before driving across state lines to Alabama itself. After a visit to the adorable, Americana-filled town of Oxford, we dived straight into RV life, heading up Mount Cheaha to spend our first night at the top of Alabama's highest peak. It was dark by the time we got there, but with a little help from the Cheaha State Park rangers we navigated into our space.
Being truly in among nature has to be one of the most convincing reasons to give motor-homing a go. Each day we had woken to views of lush forests, hazy mountains, vast lakes, and paddocks of horses, and our first morning was no different. We emerged from our cocoon to find dewy trees and a chorus of cicadas before watching the sun rise across the park’s vast plain.
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Mount Cheaha is Alabama's highest peak
A home from home
I was surprised at how comfortable a sleep we both had in the RV – and it wasn't just the jet lag. We had been provided with all the furnishings we might need – from towels, to sheets, to sleeping bags – while the air conditioning kept us cool in the heavy southern heat.
Showering also wasn't nearly as arduous as I expected. Having spent some time on canal boats, I was accustomed to dealing with tiny cubicles, but the van’s facilities were perfectly adequate for me and my 6’1” husband, while the privy didn't at all feel like a plastic caravan toilet. But, if you do feel squeamish, every park we stayed in had lovely, fresh showers available for men and women.
A waterfall in DeSoto State Park
Natural beauty
From Cheaha we headed north to DeSoto State Park, where you will find a 141ft waterfall in which you can have a refreshing swim, and then onwards to Lake Guntersville, which at 67,900 acres is 20 times the size of Lake Windermere in the UK. Northern Alabama is blessed with natural beauty, so driving through it is a joy. We wound down lanes that cut through the dense forests, and past homesteads with American flags and white picket fences. The elevated position from the driver's cab put us in the perfect spot to feel like we were really seeing every part of the state as we explored it, like we weren't missing anything.
Rosa Parks statue in Montgomery
Historic sights
Our tour took us from the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in the far north of the state, right through the agricultural middle and down to the Gulf of Mexico, so soon we were heading back south.
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In Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery we learned about Alabama's dark Civil Rights history, and the people who made protests that changed the entire country, from Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King Jr.
After touring some of the struggle's most important sights, we stopped for the night at Oak Mountain State Park and cooked dinner in the RV's kitchen. We had also opted for the vehicle provisioning kit, which meant we had everything from utensils, to glasses, to pots and pans. Sitting under the setting sun and watching horses play in a nearby paddock was a peaceful way to process a day in which we had discovered so much.
Orange Beach is located on Alabama's Gulf Coast
Undulating sand dunes
As we drove further down the I-65 freeway the landscape began to change. Where there had been leaves trimmed in autumnal gold, we instead started to see tropical trees and fields of cotton. The weather grew denser still as the climate got more Caribbean.
Alabama's Gulf coast consists of 60 miles of powdery white sand bookended by Florida and Mississippi. It is a small stretch of coastline, often overlooked for the more famous eastern neighbour, but its beauty is in its lack of development. The two towns of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores are separated by the 6,150-acre Gulf State Park, which ensures the seafront is bordered by undulating sand dunes, not towering hotels.
Being truly among nature is the best reason to try motor-homing
The verdict
For us, RVing had been about seeing the state from a different perspective, getting back to nature and experiencing a new type of travel. Our sweet mobile home of Alabama proved that the journey can be as enjoyable as the destination.
Jaymi McCann was a guest of the Alabama Tourism Department (alabama.travel) and Cruise America (cruiseamerica.com). Tailor-made trip specialists America As You Like It (americaasyoulikeit.com) has an 11-night RV holiday to Alabama from £2,090/$2,570 per person, based on two sharing, including return flights from London to Atlanta on British Airways, one night room only in Atlanta and 10 nights C25 RV rental, including unlimited mileage, vehicle and personal kits, and all local taxes.
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Jaymi McCann is a freelance journalist who writes extensively on travel for The Week, as well as publications including The Telegraph, National Geographic, Rough Guides, The i Paper and The Mail on Sunday. She has a degree in English literature from the University of Glasgow, a master’s in newspaper journalism from City University London, and 15 years of experience on Fleet Street. She specialises in writing about Scotland, as well as cruising, city guides and foodie travel. Jaymi loves to discover new places, particularly in Switzerland, Germany and southern Europe. Her Glasgow guide for The Week won a gong at the annual Media Getaway Awards.