Exploring the Culture, Coasts, and Hidden Corners of Florida
Florida has gotten very good at hiding what it used to do for a living. Drive through the state today and the visible economy is hard to miss. Hotels rise beside beaches. Subdivisions spread across former pasture. Restaurants, airports, cruise…
There is a moment, if you come into Florida’s Big Bend the right way, when the Florida most people think they know simply disappears. The six-lane roads thin to two. Condominium towers vanish. The horizon gets lower. Pine forest crowds…
Florida has built an unusually successful reputation around sunshine. It is right there in the nickname. Beaches are photographed at noon. Springs are sold in shades of turquoise. Palm trees are expected to stand against blue skies. Vacation itineraries begin…
There is a particular moment that happens on a Florida road when you realize you have escaped. It isn’t marked by a sign. There is no official boundary between the Florida everybody knows and the Florida that seems to exist…
Before Florida’s highways, there were rivers. They carried people, timber, citrus, livestock, mail, fish, military supplies, tourists, and news. Towns grew where boats could dock, where railroads met water, where springs fed navigable channels, or where rivers approached the Gulf…
Florida sunshine has an excellent marketing department. Florida rain is responsible for operations. A summer morning may begin beneath a flawless blue sky and collapse by midafternoon into thunder, dark clouds, sideways rain, and a parking lot filling with water…
Florida architecture has never been restrained. The state has castles made of coral, hotels designed like Mediterranean palaces, forts built from coquina, Art Deco streets painted in tropical colors, wooden island homes, ornate theaters, lighthouses, and mansions constructed by people…
Florida is often described through its beaches, springs, swamps, and palm-lined roads. But some of the state’s most beautiful landscapes were shaped deliberately. Gardeners, botanists, artists, collectors, and wealthy dreamers imported plants, carved paths through hammocks, designed reflecting pools, planted…
Florida’s famous beaches are famous for good reasons. They are also surrounded by parking searches, crowded access points, expensive rooms, and people attempting to conduct professional photography sessions directly where you placed your towel. Fortunately, Florida has thousands of miles…
Florida’s most astonishing water often appears far from the coast. Springs rise from the aquifer through openings in the limestone, feeding rivers, swimming areas, wetlands, and entire ecosystems. Some are deep blue. Others spread into broad basins. Some support paddling,…