If you're interested in the area north of 466 stay at the Holiday Inn Express near Spanish Springs, you can walk to Spanish Springs square and Katie Belle's, it's just a restaurant you don't need a pass. Swimming pools and golf are the only things you would miss. You can still go to any of the country clubs and eat and walk inside the rec centers and look around, and if you want to just get wet, the Holiday Inn has a pool.
If you are interested in the newer areas then I would stay at the Hampton Inn on 466. It's just a short drive to Lake Sumter Landing Square and if you wanted, you could park your car at LSL and rent a golf cart for about $10 a day at The Villages Golf Cart Store.
The biggest item you'll be missing by not using a lifestyle visit is not having a sales agent assigned to you and touring models and new homes for sale. If you've never been here before and or haven't researched the homes for sale on the internet, then maybe looking at homes is too soon anyway. Once you're here you can check the newspaper for open houses of resales, which there is usually many, and go see them without an agent.
From 2009 until we bought our new courtyard villa in July of this year, I was on The Villages New Homes website writing down addresses and listing prices of homes every week. Then when we came here for a 7 day LSV in April of this year, we knew that we wanted, which was either a new patio villa or CYV and then all we had to do then, was to physically see the areas new homes were being built and what the homes actually felt like when we walked inside.
http://www.thevillages.com/homes/index.asp