Where to go, and when · with the homework done
ORLANDO · WEEKEND GETAWAYS · WHAT CLOSES, WHAT BOOKS OUT An hour or two out of Orlando puts you at a spring, an ocean, a fort or a manatee. Whether you get in is a separate question. Wekiwa Springs now takes a day-use reservation. Orange County counts 280 cars into Kelly Park in the morning. … Read more
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK · CAMPING · FLORIDA Two campgrounds in Everglades National Park can be reached by car, Flamingo and Long Pine Key, and both sit inside the Homestead entrance. Everything else is reached by water: ground sites on solid land, beach sites along the coast, and wooden platforms on pilings called chickees, paddled or … Read more
SIESTA KEY · FLORIDA · SARASOTA COUNTY Siesta Key Beach starts with a parking space. The Siesta Key Public Beach and Pavilion has 976 of them, and Visit Sarasota County’s guidance for the January to April peak season is blunt: the lots fill up fast, so arrive as early as possible. Plan the morning backward … Read more
SOUTH WALTON · FLORIDA PANHANDLE · 16 BEACH NEIGHBORHOODS There is no town called South Walton. The name covers the Gulf-front south end of Walton County, Florida: 26 miles of sand, sixteen beach neighborhoods with their own names and their own personalities, and no downtown to anchor any of it. Ask where to stay here … Read more
FLORIDA · ELEVEN NPS UNITS · THREE NATIONAL PARKS Everglades, Biscayne and Dry Tortugas are the three Florida units the National Park Service lists as National Parks. The other eight carry a preserve, two seashores, two monuments, two memorials and one ecological and historic preserve between them. The label sets the scale of a visit: … Read more
FLORIDA · BY CAR · US-1 · MM 127 TO MM 0 A few bridges into the Keys, the Atlantic sits on one side of the car and Florida Bay on the other, and the driving stops feeling like transportation. The Overseas Highway crosses open water on 42 bridges, and in 2009 the Federal Highway … Read more
