Disney did not count for Florida. Just needed to get that said from the get-go. Disney is certainly part of Florida, and it helps fund Florida, but we weren’t going to visit Disney and tell them they’d seen Florida.
As it turns out, Florida became one of our most visited states over the years. We’ve flown into multiple airports, driven in to various destinations, and crisscrossed the state a couple of times. Here are a few tips:
1 – Identify the closet Publix.
2 – Bring your sunscreen. And your bug spray… especially if you’re not staying at a place with screens.
3 – It’s humid. Bring changes of clothes, or just plan to be in the pool/ocean most of the time.
We visited Disney pre-Covid, but in a post-Covid era, Florida has been more travel-friendly than many other states, and we took full advantage. Lincoln and Lydia got some Florida time with Jenn in the summer of 2021 while Henry was at Lego Camp in Columbus, OH, and I was holding down the fort at work, though I don’t have photos saved from that visit. The goal at that time was beaching it, sunning it, and getting away from the grind for a bit.
A bit before that, in an effort to take Jenn’s parents to Dry Tortugas National Park (more on this later), we traveled to Key West in December of 2020… the height of Covid hysteria. As it turned out, the weather and waves out at DTNP were prohibitively bad for sea planes, so we didn’t achieve our goal. Instead, we wandered around Key West for a few days, visiting places like The First Legal Rum Distillery and the Butterfly Conservancy. There are plenty of good restaurants in the area, and some of them are off the beaten path. Get a block or two off of Duval, and you’ll find the real gems.
Night photography is always good in Key West if you’ve got a tripod, and the chickens are plentiful.
While we couldn’t make it to Dry Tortugas, we got to experience Everglades National Park and Biscayne Bay National Park in very cool ways. Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to Biscayne Bay. Their Instagram account was about as boring as could be in 2019 and 2020. But we were pleasantly surprised after we arrived to see how beautiful and varied it really is, and we all grew to really like it really quickly. Everglades is particularly neat if you can get out on the water.
The Key West airport is pretty low key with only so many flights going in and out. There’s not much of a reason to fly through this airport; there’s only really reason to fly to and from this airport.
We spent a decent amount of time in Florida in the summer of 2022, primarily in the Fort Myers Beach area. Lincoln attended a couple weeks of tennis camp while Lydia and Henry spent a week at a surf camp in Naples. I’m getting to this post later in the game, as we took Florida in small bites from a regional perspective, and most of the restaurants I would suggest following our stay got obliterated by Hurricane Ian a few short months after our stay.
While Jenn stayed with the kids for most of the weeks that summer, I flew back and forth to keep up with work. Southwest Florida International Airport provides the type of airport experience we all used to enjoy and still prefer over the cattle-moving experiences of most of today’s airports. It never seems too crowded, the security lines aren’t too long or onerous, parking is convenient, getting in and out flows smoothly.
Jenn found a VRBO at the end of Randy Lane adjacent to Estero Bay that made for wonderful entry into the water for really good paddling around the mangroves like the larger Julies Island and the smaller, unnamed islands. We made friends with a number of families on the street, visiting their homes for cookouts. The kids had sleepovers, and overall we really enjoyed the immersive experience during our time there. It was the right place at the right time.
“My most memorable thing I have done in Florida was when our family drove down to Florida and we stayed for 3 weeks. While we were down there we made friends with the neighbors.” –Henry
Henry added, “One of my favorite parts of our 3 week vacation were the camps I went to I had the chance to go to the Ocean Kids Camp. But my favorite camp was the Stem Camp.”
We flew the kids back to Ohio with Grandma once our time neared its end, and Jenn and I drove home, stopping at the Crystal River to paddle to Three Sisters Spring on our way out. This is one beautiful place to paddle, and the name is absolutely accurate. You may even spot a manatee!
Lincoln, Jenn, and I spent some time exploring Key West and Dry Tortugas National Park in the summer of 2023 after we picked him up from tennis camp in Naples. Key West is lots of fun for a couple of days. Then you run out of things to do there.
In the Naples area? Make sure to visit Mimosa of Naples for breakfast. Or lunch. Or whatever.
Before we took Lincoln to his tennis camp, Jenn and I paddled around Manasota Key behind (what is now) the Gulf of America, and spent some time on the beach with Lincoln. This is one cool paddle boarding location given the mangrove islands and sandbars, and is definitely a place to which we’ll return.
Jenn and I visited Cocoa Beach for some down-time and paddle boarding in the summer of 2024. For this one, we flew into Orlando.
We enjoyed all of our meals at 4th Street Filling Station and Florida’s Fresh Grill.
Then we all spent another week in the Cape Coral area in January of 2025. We were looking for something reasonably drivable for our post Christmas and New Year’s travels that also included paddle board access. The canals around the area made for pleasant paddling, but there wasn’t much wildlife to appreciate in the water except for the bunch of catfish Lincoln hauled in!
After spending a few days with us, Lydia and Henry took off with extended family for Universal Studios’ Harry Potter World! Henry shared these photos with me for this post…
Stay tuned… we’re probably not done with Florida. 🙂
#Gates50States 
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