Florida: The Sunshine State’s Extraordinary Range
Florida is the third most visited destination in the world — after France and the United States collectively — and its tourism economy is larger than the GDP of many countries. But “Florida” as experienced by most visitors is a relatively narrow slice of what the state actually contains: the theme park corridor of Orlando, the beaches of Miami and the Keys, and the golf resorts of the Gulf Coast. The Florida that rewards deeper exploration is considerably more interesting: a subtropical wilderness of extraordinary biological diversity, a history layered with Spanish colonial, Native American, and early American settlement, and a coastline of 8,436 miles (including bays, estuaries, and inland waterways) that is the longest of any US state.
Florida’s natural and cultural depth is consistently underestimated by visitors focused on Disney World and South Beach. Here is what the state actually has to offer.
The Everglades: America’s River of Grass
The Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States — a 1.5 million-acre system of sawgrass prairies, mangrove forests, coastal marshes, and cypress swamps that was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, an International Biosphere Reserve, and a Wetland of International Importance. The park is also the only place in the world where alligators and American crocodiles coexist naturally, and it supports 350+ bird species, 50+ species of reptile, 300+ species of fish, and the Florida panther — one of the most endangered large mammals in North America, with fewer than 200 individuals estimated to remain in the wild.
The Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm is the most immediately rewarding short walk in the park — a 0.8-mile boardwalk through freshwater marsh where anhinga birds spread their wings to dry, alligators bask on the banks, and wading birds feed within arm’s reach of the trail. The Pa-hay-okee Overlook provides the quintessential “River of Grass” perspective — a vast, flat expanse of sawgrass stretching to the horizon that looks unlike any other landscape in North America.
Airboat tours, available from operators on the northern edge of the park near Everglades City and from private operators on Tamiami Trail (US 41), provide access to marsh areas not reachable on foot and are one of the most memorable Florida outdoor experiences — gliding across shallow water at speed, surrounded by sawgrass and wildlife, with the Miami skyline visible on the northern horizon.
Miami and Miami Beach
Miami is one of the great cities of the Americas — a bilingual (Spanish and English are truly co-equal in daily life), internationally sophisticated metropolis that functions as the financial and cultural capital of Latin America as much as it does as a Florida city. The combination of Art Deco architecture in South Beach (the largest collection of Art Deco buildings in the world, concentrated in an area of just a few square miles), extraordinary food that ranges from Cuban pressed sandwiches at Versailles (the most famous Cuban restaurant in the world, operating since 1971) to the most ambitious contemporary dining in the Southeast, Wynwood’s outdoor street art murals (the largest outdoor mural installation in the United States), and the Pérez Art Museum Miami (a world-class contemporary art institution with a spectacular Biscayne Bay setting) creates a city of genuine cultural mass.
South Beach’s Ocean Drive is the epicenter of the Miami Beach Art Deco Historic District — a mile of pastel-colored hotels, restaurants, and bars that exemplifies the glamour and excess of a certain American idea of the good life. The Wolfsonian-FIU museum, housed in a historic Art Deco building two blocks from Ocean Drive, is one of the finest design museums in the country. Coconut Grove, Coral Gables (with the University of Miami and the spectacular Venetian Pool), and the Design District each offer distinct Miami experiences beyond the South Beach circuit.
Florida Keys and Key West
The Florida Keys extend 125 miles southwest from the mainland into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, connected by the Overseas Highway (US 1) across 42 bridges, the longest of which — the Seven Mile Bridge — is one of the most remarkable engineering structures in the American road system. The Keys are a chain of coral islands with a laid-back, slightly eccentric culture that culminates in Key West — the southernmost point in the continental United States, a city that has attracted writers (Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams), artists, and eccentrics for a century and maintains its bohemian character despite significant commercialization.
The coral reefs of the Florida Reef Tract — the third-largest coral barrier reef system in the world — provide snorkeling and diving of genuine world-class quality in the Upper and Middle Keys. John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park (the first undersea park in the United States), Molasses Reef, and the Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary are the most celebrated reef destinations. The water clarity and coral diversity rival Caribbean destinations at a fraction of the travel cost for East Coast visitors.
Orlando: Beyond the Theme Parks
Orlando’s theme park complex — Walt Disney World Resort (the most visited tourist destination in the world), Universal Orlando Resort, SeaWorld, LEGOLAND, and over a dozen other major attractions — constitutes the largest concentration of tourist infrastructure in the United States and draws 72 million visitors annually. The Disney property alone covers 27,000 acres, larger than San Francisco.
Beyond the theme parks, Orlando has developed genuine cultural infrastructure: the Orlando Museum of Art, the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (one of the finest new performance venues in the Southeast), a restaurant scene anchored by the Mills 50 neighborhood, and the Mennello Museum of American Art (featuring the most significant collection of folk art by Earl Cunningham). The International Drive corridor has more family entertainment per mile than almost anywhere in the country, and the proximity to Space Coast (Kennedy Space Center is 60 miles east) adds a dimension of genuine national significance to the Orlando experience.
St. Augustine: America’s Oldest City
St. Augustine, founded by Spanish colonists in 1565 on Florida’s northeast coast, is the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States. The city’s Castillo de San Marcos — a magnificent masonry fort completed in 1695 that defended Spanish Florida for over a century — is one of the best-preserved colonial fortifications in North America. The historic district’s 17th and 18th-century Spanish colonial buildings, the Flagler College (housed in the former Ponce de León Hotel, a masterpiece of Gilded Age architecture), and the Bridge of Lions over the Matanzas River create an atmosphere of genuine historical depth that is unique in Florida.
