Where to go, and when · with the homework done
ORLANDO · DECEMBER · THE MONTH GUIDE December ends Orlando’s sweaty half of the year. The 1991-2020 normals for the airport station put the average high at 73.8°F (23.2°C) and the average low at 52.9°F (11.6°C), with 2.48 inches of precipitation across the month. Measurable rain shows up on 3.7 days, counting only days that … Read more
ST. AUGUSTINE · KNOW BEFORE YOU GO · 29.9° N The Spanish were here in 1565, and the coquina fort they eventually built still anchors the north end of town. Age is the selling point, and it holds up. What trips up a first visit is smaller than history: a free boarding pass you cannot … Read more
KEY WEST · WHAT TO KNOW · MILE MARKER 0 The Overseas Highway ends at a street corner. Mile Marker 0 stands at Whitehead and Fleming, the southern end of a route that runs roughly 2,370 miles north to Fort Kent, Maine (published totals vary between 2,369 and 2,390, so take the order of magnitude … Read more
MIAMI · KNOW BEFORE YOU GO · FLORIDA A taxi from MIA to South Beach crosses water. That detail undoes more first trips than any weather forecast: the beach in the brochure is not in the city on the hotel confirmation, and the road between them runs over a causeway that fills at the wrong … Read more
MADEIRA · AIRPORT TRANSFERS · FUNCHAL The plane lands, the terminal empties in twenty minutes flat, and every visitor at the curb is weighing the same two options: the airport bus or a taxi. Madeira’s bus answer is a single line, the Aerobus, which runs the coast road west from the airport, crosses central Funchal, … Read more
SOUTH WALTON · FLORIDA PANHANDLE · THE 12-MONTH VERDICT South Walton sells one thing above all others: quartz sand pale enough to hurt your eyes, low dunes behind it, and a string of beach neighborhoods threaded along County Road 30A. Nobody arrives wondering whether the beach delivers. The question is which month hands you water … Read more
