Visiting The Villages!

We are staying in Wildwood, Florida, very close to The Villages, a 55+ community in central Florida. Carl had heard about The Villages several years ago, and had told me about it, so we decided that we should take the opportunity to visit while we are here. We contacted the community a couple of weeks ago and arranged to take a tour on Friday. The sales representative arranged to meet us in the Brownwood center -- it is quite a large community -- so she picked the sales office location that would be closest to where we are staying.

Entry into The Villages near Brownwood center.

Looking ahead of us on the highway, we could see one of the golf cart bridges over the road.

The Brownwood center has what we would call a "western" theme, but we understood that the designers were told to capture a look for central Florida in the 1930s (? we think they said 1930s) when this area was primarily involved in raising cattle.

An old typewriter and bison desk lamp in the sales office.

A view inside the sales office

Our salesperson had arranged for us to take a trolley ride to introduce us to a couple of sections in The Villages. Our driver, Dean, and narrator, Mike, were very informative!

The trolley on which we rode, letting us off back at the sales center.

One of the raised relief maps in the sales center with layouts of some of the neighborhoods where new home sales are currently active.

Some pictures around the square at Brownwood...

"Paddock Square"

There are 3 main squares spaced out through the Villages - each has shopping, dining locations, and a stage where nightly entertainment is provided. There is also a 4th smaller square with an entertainment venue in the newest area where most of the new building is currently taking place.

I'm not sure what we were thinking we would find at The Villages, but we were very impressed. The grounds are beautiful, and the amount of activities is massive. There are 100+ pools, 100+ recreation centers, 1400+ clubs. It is hard to imagine that you couldn't find *something* of interest here!

Unfortunately, there are no RV parks within the community; almost all of the housing is single-family homes, with a small number of apartments.

We're glad we had this opportunity to become acquainted with The Villages!