Florida Off the Beaten Path®. A Guide to Unique Places

243 Pages·2014·10.626 MB·English

by  Diana Gleasner,Bill Gleasner

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OFF THE BEATEN PATH®
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THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO EXTRAORDINARY TRAVEL N FLORIDA

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Praise for the Off the Beaten Path® series H A GUIDE TO UNIQUE PLACES

“For the traveler who enjoys the special, the unusual, and the unexpected.”
—The Traveler newsletter
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“Globe Pequot publishes some fi ne books in its ‘Off the Beaten Path’ series. . . . These L
books cover states that no other publisher covers thoroughly.”
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—San Diego Union-Tribune
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Tired of the same old tourist traps? Whether you’re a visitor or a local looking for some- I
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thing different, let Florida Off the Beaten Path show you the Sunshine State you never
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knew existed. Head to Weeki Wachee Springs in Spring Hill and catch a live mermaid
show. Hop a boat from Panama City Beach to Shell Island and bask amidst pristine beach-
es and windswept dunes. Swim with dolphins at Marineland in St. Augustine. So if you’ve
“been there, done that” one too many times, get off the main road and venture Off the
Beaten Path.
Diana and Bill Gleasner have published over thirty books, including the popular Popoki
series for children, and they have written hundreds of articles for national and international
magazines and newspapers. As professional travel photojournalists who have roamed the
globe in search of travel adventures, they admit a continuing addiction to Florida.
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Cover design by Georgiana Goodwin ED
Cover photograph of egret at Merritt Island and back cover photograph of IT
Castillo de San Marcos National Monument licensed by Shutterstock.com IO
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GPP Travel is an imprint of
Globe Pequot Press
Guilford, Connecticut
GlobePequot.com
GPP Travel is an imprint of
GPP Travel is an imprint of GGuloilfboerd P, eCqounonet cPtirceusts
Globe Pequot Press www.GlobePequot.com
Guilford, Connecticut
GlobePequot.com
off the beaten path®
florida
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Help Us Keep This Guide Up to Date
We would love to hear from you concerning your experiences with this
guide and how you feel it could be improved and kept up to date. Please
send your comments and suggestions to:
editorial@GlobePequot .com
Thanks for your input, and happy travels!
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Off the Beaten Path® SerieS

twelfth edition
off the beaten path®
florida
a guide to unique places
Diana & Bill Gleasner
®
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To Ed and Susan Cottle—Intrepid Florida Explorers
And to our noble assistants, Bob and Carole Rowell
All the information in this guidebook is subject to change. We
recommend that you call ahead to obtain current information before
traveling.
Copyright © 2014 Morris Book Publishing, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn:
Rights and Permissions Department, PO Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.
Off the Beaten Path is a registered trademark of Morris Book Publishing, LLC.
Editor: Amy Lyons
Project Editor: Lauren Szalkiewicz
Layout: Joanna Beyer
Text design: Linda Loiewski
Maps: Equator Graphics © Morris Book Publishing, LLC
ISSN 1539-0845
ISBN 978-0-7627-9201-6
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Northeast Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Northwest Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Central Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Southwest Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Southeast Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
The Florida Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Florida State Parks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
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Florida
Pensacola NORTHWEST Tallahassee
FLORIDA Jacksonville
NORTHEAST
FLORIDA
Orlando
CENTRAL
FLORIDA
Tampa
Sarasota
SOUTHEAST
FLORIDA
SSOOUUTTHHWWEESSTT
FFLLOORRIIDDAA
Miami
THE KEYS
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Introduction
Warning! Straying from the beaten interstate can be addictive. But is it ever
fun!
By poking and prowling around this incredible state, we discovered a
high- rise for bats, the world’s smallest police station, a McDonald’s complete
with salt licks and hitching posts, and a museum dedicated to the inventor
of air- conditioning.
Florida seems to have cornered the “world’s largest” market. We saw
the largest concentration of saw grass; the largest bald cypress tree; and
the largest collections of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, Art Deco buildings,
Salvador Dalí artworks, and Tiffany glass in the world. We even strolled the
world’s longest continuous sidewalk.
We traveled by inner tube, pontoon boat, car, motor home, houseboat,
sailboat, seaplane, canoe, motorized gondola, swamp buggy, and airboat.
Our meanderings took us through Little Havana, the Greek community of
Tarpon Springs, and a Miccosukee Indian village.
We heard a dolphin take a deep breath in the Everglades, toured a
thoroughbred farm, and chatted with a cow hunter rounding up one of the
few remaining herds of scrub cattle in existence. We saw manatees, wood
storks, a herd of buffalo, and alligators romping in the surf!
We slept in a lighthouse, cheered ourselves hoarse at a rodeo, hunted
for fossil shark teeth, lunched in an indoor swimming pool (luckily for us, it
was dry), nibbled on alligator tail (lucky for us, it was no longer connected
to the animal), and pitched a tent on more than a few of the Ten Thousand
Islands.
In short, we have enjoyed an abundance of serendipitous experiences.
But there are many more discoveries waiting to be made in Florida. Write
us (c/o Globe Pequot Press, PO Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437, or editorial@
Globe Pequot .com) and tell us your special finds.
Travel safely and have a terrific time!
Florida Facts
Name: Discoverer Ponce de León named it “Florida,” the Land of
Flowers, for its abundant flora.
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viii Introduction
Official nickname: The Sunshine State
Location: Southeastern US. Florida’s southern tip is 1,700 miles (2,742
kilometers) north of the equator.
History: Florida has belonged to five different nations: Spain, England,
France, the Confederacy, and the US.
State capital: Tallahassee was selected as the capital in 1824—a com-
promise between Pensacola in west Florida and St. Augustine on the
east coast.
Population: With more than 19 million people, Florida is the fourth-
most populous state in the US after California, Texas, and New York.
The population increased 2.7 percent from 2010 to 2012. The largest
concentration of Finns (17,000) outside of Finland lives in the Lake
Worth/Lantana area. When asked where they would most like to live
other than their current residence, many Americans made Florida their
first choice.
Time: Most of Florida is in the eastern time zone. The area west of the
Apalachicola River is in the central time zone.
Weather: Abundant sunshine, pleasant coastal breezes during summer
months, and 53 inches of annual rainfall.
Average annual temperatures: Summer: 80.5 degrees Fahrenheit in
north Florida and 82.7 in south Florida. Winter: 53 degrees Fahrenheit
in north Florida and 68.5 in south Florida.
Geography: Total area is 58,560 square miles. From Pensacola to the
southernmost point of Key West is 832 miles (1,342 kilometers).
Lakes: Florida is sprinkled with more than 7,800 lakes, ranging in size
from an acre to the 448,000-acre Lake Okeechobee, the second- largest
freshwater lake in the US.
Rivers: Florida has 34 major rivers. Certainly one of the best-k nown
rivers (thanks to Stephen Foster’s song “Old Folks at Home”) is the
Suwannee, in the northern part of the state.
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Introduction ix
Springs: There are 720 known springs in the state and 33 are classi-
fied as “first magnitude.” First magnitude springs produce at least 100
cubic feet of fresh water per second. One of the longest underwater
cave systems in the continental US (over 28,000 feet), Peacock Springs
State Recreation Area, is a popular place for cave diving.
Beaches: A beach is no more than 60 miles (96.7 kilometers) away
no matter where you are in Florida. Sand beaches account for 1,200
miles (1,935 kilometers) of the state’s 1,800 miles (2,903 kilometers) of
coastline. Florida’s beaches are rated among the finest in the country
by University of Maryland coastal geologist Stephen Leatherman, who
researches and rates the nation’s beaches on 40 criteria.
Shoreline: Florida has more tidal shoreline than any other state except
Alaska.
Islands: Florida has 4,510 islands that are 10 acres or more in size,
more than any state except Alaska.
Elevations: Florida’s highest point is Britton Hill, at 345 feet, near
DeFuniak Springs (Walton County) in the northwest section of the
state.
Tourism: Tourism is the state’s number- one industry, followed by agri-
culture. In 2012, 89.3 million tourists visited Florida.
National parks: Florida has 11 national parks: Big Cypress National
Preserve in southwest Florida; Biscayne National Park in Biscayne
Bay; Canaveral National Seashore at Titusville; Castillo de San Marcos
National Monument in St. Augustine; De Soto National Memorial in
Bradenton; the seven islands of the Dry Tortugas; Everglades National
Park; Fort Caroline National Memorial in Jacksonville; Fort Matanzas
in St. Augustine; the Gulf Islands National Seashore, which stretches
from Cat Island in Mississippi to the Santa Rosa Islands in Florida; and
Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve in Jacksonville.
National forests: Florida’s four national forests—Apalachicola (includ-
ing Choctawhatchee), Osceola, Florida National Scenic Trail, and
Ocala—cover more than one million acres. Nearly half the state is cov-
ered with uninhabited forests.
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