A Russian-Jewish American family keeping kosher on a Florida RV trip

Keeping kosher on the road is not one decision. It is a series of decisions — kashrut of meat, separation of dairy and meat, status of utensils, status of dishwater, status of bread — that each family makes differently. A modern-Orthodox family from Brooklyn handles a Florida trip differently than a Soviet-immigrant family from Miami Beach where the grandparents grew up secular and the grandchildren are baalei teshuva. The plan below is illustrative, not prescriptive.

This is an editorial piece by the PickRV team. It is not a testimonial. If your family wants to publish your real Florida kosher trip with your name, write to support@pickrv.com.

A Class C galley has one sink, one cooktop, one fridge, and a tight counter. A kosher household separates meat and dairy across utensils, cookware, sinks, and surfaces — which is straightforward at home with two of everything and harder on a 27-foot rig. The realistic compromises observed by families on the road, in roughly increasing strictness:

Compromise A: a single set of dedicated parve and dairy utensils, with all meat purchased pre-cooked from a kosher restaurant or eaten cold. The rig becomes effectively a dairy/parve kitchen for the trip. This is the most common solution on a one-week trip.

Compromise B: a meat-only galley (no dairy aboard) with dairy products consumed at restaurants or as picnic items off the rig. This works better in Florida where breakfast cafés are common and the heat shortens the time dairy can sit in a cooler.

Compromise C: a dual-galley setup with color-coded plastic tubs (blue for dairy, red for meat) and disposable foil pans on the cooktop. Heavy on waste, simple in practice, common among families with school-age children.

PickRV does not have a religious opinion. We do have a logistical one: pick the compromise before you leave Miami, and equip the rig with the dedicated utensils on day one.

South Florida is the easiest part of this trip. Publix on Arthur Godfrey Road in Miami Beach has a kosher section larger than most full-service kosher markets in other states. Publix in Surfside (96th and Harding) is similar. Winn-Dixie locations in Hollywood and Aventura stock OU-certified products but the deli is mixed; check labels. Whole Foods Aventura has the broadest selection of kosher fresh meat in the state.

Driving west toward Naples or south to Key Largo, the density drops sharply. Naples has one kosher grocer (Yossi's, downtown); Key Largo has none. Plan the meat purchase in advance and freeze it into the rig's freezer for the drive. A 27-foot Class C with a propane-mode fridge will hold a frozen rib roast for four days at the highway temperature you'll see in Florida in shoulder season.

Florida state parks are quiet, well-spaced, and dark at night, which makes them surprisingly good for Shabbat observance. Bahia Honda (Lower Keys), Long Key, and Curry Hammock all have generator hours that stop at sundown on summer Fridays, which solves the eruv-tavshilin problem of cooking in the dark. The reservation system at floridastateparks.org goes online 11 months in advance; popular sites in winter book in the first day.

The Russian-Jewish American community in Florida is concentrated in Sunny Isles, Aventura, and Hollywood, and the local Chabad houses welcome visiting RV families for Friday-night dinners. Calling ahead is correct; arriving with a rig parked on the street and walking in is also workable. The Sunny Isles Russian-language Chabad at 200th Street is the easiest hello for a family whose grandparents are more comfortable in Russian than in English.

We did not write a section on "the spirit of Jewish travel." There is no such category. There are families. Each one makes its own decisions about what to keep, and the marketplace is not entitled to flatten that.