If your place is already furnished, you really only need to bring enough for the first few days. For me that would mean coffee and a coffee maker, a couple towels, sheets, toilet paper, meds, shampoo, body soap, disinfecting wipes, maybe a favorite pillow. And wine. Enjoy! (It’s been cold here so bring a sweater.)

You will enjoy your own place in Florida.My husband and spend a month or more in Florida. Since you plan to be away for months, you probably need to do more than i do. You most likely need to arrange for lawn and garden care and forwarding your mail. Anyhow this is what I do. I arrange with a teen in my neighborhood to check the house and clear the snow when I am away. I have a large mailbox that locks so I do not stop the mail. I signed up with informed delivery with USPS. My daughter comes weekly to bring in the mail, check the house, and water the plants. I set up accounts with passwords for all my usual bills and online banking, so I can pay the bills when I am away. I give my itinerary and address to family members and a neighbor. I installed an electronic WIFI connected thermostat, so I can check the temperature and the heating system at the house while I am away. I turned off the water to all the outside spigots and drained them. Although I have clothes and shoes at the house in Florida, I always pack things from home especially favorite things for layering. Although I strive for minimalism in Florida, I have furnished the house with bathroom, and kitchen items, and linens.

You will be able to do plenty without putting yourself in harm's way. There are lots of easy walking/hiking trails, restaurants with outside seating that are practicing Covid protocols, beaches, and pools aplenty, and warm weather although not today. Since I travel from the Middle Atlantic, I always have some winter gear in the car.

Thanks for the helpful comments so far. Dee, thanks for bumping it up. When I posted this several days ago, it never appeared, and I searched a few pages in, and never saw it. I either missed it, or Houzz was doing one of it’s weird things to new posts.

A lot of your checklist depends on where you live and what your plans are while you're gone and how tech savvy you are and whether or not you have family to take care of things while you're gone.

In the old days, we were the caretakers as DH's parents headed to NYC and my parents headed to FL, so we kept an eye on things on both places while they were gone.

When Mom left FL for the summer, she had to tape all the drain openings in kitchen and baths to keep the cockroaches out as they are everywhere in FL.

Up here she had electric heat she'd turn down low so that wasn't an issue. She turned off the hot water heater and shut the valve to the washing machine. Cleaned out the fridge and freezer and shut that off but prop the door open. And we were here to turn up the heat, turn on the fridge and hot water heater before she arrived home so the house was warm and ready.

Depending on how long you will be gone, you might want to switch your mail. And stop any newspapers. Our police keep a vacant house list where they stop by daily to make sure it looks ok.

I hope you don't have any plants to worry about or that you have someone to care for them while you're gone.

In the old days, they kept a lamp in the front window with a red bulb in it that was hooked to a thermostat, so it would come on to let the neighbors know that it meant their heat was off and they should call. Nowadays there are ways you can have the house call your phone to let you know.

If you have any vehicles you are leaving here, be sure to take the cables off the battery otherwise it will trickle drain the entire time you're gone and you'll arrive home to dead batteries. Also, if you are gone any length of time, you might want to put stabil in the tank and then fill it up to keep the gas in better condition while you're gone.

Make sure someone has a key and can be called in case of emergency...don't want the fire department breaking down your door for a false alarm.

Those are just off the top of my head.

Good points, Annie, especially about the car battery. We are leaving a car behind.

One thing we do before leaving home for even a weekend is to turn off the water. Our plumber put an easy to use valve in our garage after we once came home to a flooded house (ice maker line split).

We also have lamps on timers.

I wouldn't be too concerned about what you need to take with you but more about keeping everything safe and secure at the home you're leaving up north. Hopefully you get all your bills electronically and can pay them online and have someone who can check on your place occasionally and get in if needed.

We don't leave to go anywhere for months but we leave our lake cabin in the dead of MN winter for up to a month at times. We have wi-fi thermostats that notify us if the temperature drops or if for any reason they're not connecting to the internet such as a power outage. We also have a basic freeze alarm that operates over the phone line that notifies us of power outage or temperature drop. You can also call into it to check status. We have a couple cars we store over winter there and keep them on a trickle charger - easier for us than pulling the battery and we use SeaFoam rather than Stabil - supposedly better.

When we leave either house even for a weekend we always turn the water off and always have timer lights on so it doesn't look like a dark, vacant target for theft/vandalism. Similarly driveways are cleared of snow. Our neighbors have a key for our cabin so if there is some kind of emergency (furnace out for example) they can go over and let the service person in.

Turn off the icemaker and empty the ice tray.

such great ideas, thanks so much!

Let your insurance agent know if your house is going to be vacant. Some policies have a clause that requires someone to check on the interior of the house every 72 (96?) hours.

Turn off the hoses to the washing machine.

We leave the northeast every fall and head west for 6 months. We turn off the water and drain all the pipes. We leave the heat on set to 45. My dh heard it's not good for the sheetrock if it sits in freezing temps all winter. We have WIFI thermostats and security cameras that we monitor through apps. We leave lights on timers. We don't however have our driveway plowed, so right now it's pretty obvious we are not there. We have friends who stop by regularly to check our house for us. I gave all my houseplants to a friend for the winter. We suspend our cable TV service, but not the internet. We suspend our garbage pickup. Mail forwarded. Almost all of our bills are paid online. I scan important documents from our safe so I have them on my laptop. I also scan my favorite recipes.

Our car is packed to the top with stuff going both ways. We rent our west coast house for the summer, so we don't leave a lot of stuff there. My dh is handy and likes to do projects around the house, so he brings many of his tools. I bring my hobby stuff. I go through our pantry before we leave and pack foodstuffs that will expire before we return.

If I think of anything else, I'll add to this discussion.

I'd be sure to take legal papers, like powers of attorney, etc. in case there is a medical emergency. Medications and arrangements for refills if needed.

What temperature to leave your house at is an interesting question. We leave ours at 55 though I was told by one of our HVAC people that it isn't great to leave your furnace set too low for an extended period. It's also not good for refrigerators but presumably you will turn your fridge off (and leave it ajar) if you're going to be gone for a couple months.

When our parents would go to AZ for the winter, we would go over every 4-7 days to flush toilets, run water in the sinks, check for anything awry.

Our parents would ship clothing that they wore in both places, especially warm-weather clothing. And then ship it home. When they drove, they’d stop somewhere before they got there for some quick groceries, if they were arriving late. But they usually planned to arrive early in the afternoon to get settled and check on things they needed, before going out to dinner. (When they were coming home, we would do a small grocery shop with a prepared meal, and fresh eggs, bread, and milk and coffee cake for the next morning.

They have stores in Florida!

I agree with all the previous suggestions. Do you have someone who will be checking your home periodically?

What about mail? You can only do a vacation stop for 30 days. Forwarding mail down here can be a nightmare if you receive important mail that should not get lost.

This is our second winter using our Florida home. Our oldest daughter and her fiancé move in for the duration. They are more than happy to leave their city apartment.

This last week, they were responsible for shoveling.

They use my car so it doesn’t just sit. Last year my husbands battery went dead as it didn’t occur to us.

I make sure I have enough of my prescription meds, but when we stayed longer last year due to Covid, it was easy enough to get what needed mailed here.

It’s a different world down here. Everything is open. We were able to complete an entire house renovation this past year.

Just being able to sit outside and take walks in the sun is a life saver.

Bpath, of course we will shop for things we forget! We just hoped to avoid unnecessary store-hopping during COVID times. Eld, we are just looking forward to the sunshine! Our son and family live 10 minutes away up here, and will be able to help should we need it. We will forward our mail and cross our fingers that nothing gets lost. We use Walgreens up here for prescriptions, and supposedly, refills can be done at any Walgreens, and there are dozens near us in Clearwater, it seems.

Would there be a need to empty the freezer? Most frozen goods won't go bad in 2 months, if tightly sealed. Empty out all the fridge, although things like mustard, vinaigrette, and maple syrup won't go bad, either.