When we arrived in the Florida Panhandle at the very end of 2019, we began to notice references to “Old Florida.” Arriving from Alabama, we were a bit wary of this notion. After all, people there liked to talk about the “Old South” using the fancy Latin word “antebellum” that basically means “back in the day when we enslaved people to build us nice things.”
But Old Florida seems to mean something smaller-scale than your average plantation, involving fishing boats, sandy beaches and shops full of oddities. Apalachicola and Carrabelle are Old Florida, because they fell off the tourist circuit when they got bypassed by the interstate highways. (This part of the state also calls itself “Forgotten Florida.”) From there we stopped for a night or more at a series of Gulf Coast anchorages and marinas with promising Old Florida names: Alligator Creek, Burnt Store, Green Flash, Ding Darling, Pelican Bay.
Pelican Bay is part of Cayo Costa State Park, which remains Old Florida because you need a boat to get there. And it is absolutely idyllic. The Pelican Bay anchorage was a large protected cove from which we could dinghy over to a small dock. (You can also get there by ferry, and there’s a small peaceful campground.) From the dock, it was about a mile and a half walk to a perfect white sand beach, where we encountered fewer than 10 people in three days and collected shell specimens including a sand dollar and several sea urchins. (This accounted for a full day of science class).
Another day we dinghied through the “Tunnel of Love” to find the other end of the same beach; this time we only saw two other people. Sadly they were wearing MAGA hats. We secretly participated in two work conference calls from this beach, on mute because it was a little bit windy.
Moving on, Captiva is sometimes considered Old Florida, I guess because you have to drive all the way through Sanibel to get there and when you do, there’s nothing much to see except a beachfront bar and the Bubble Room. The Bubble Room qualifies as Old Florida on the basis of sheer oddness; although we didn’t get a chance to eat there we did browse through the gift shop. Felix and Josephine almost certainly broke a few cheap toys in there, but we didn’t let them near the antique Chris-Craft kiddie ride or the original Zoltar fortune-telling machine.
Next we spent a few days outside of Everglades City, a town of sorts that serves as one of the major gateways to the Everglades and is definitely Old Florida. We stopped in to gawk at the Rod and Gun Club, built in 1864 (this is super-old by Florida standards). A bunch of U.S. presidents have stayed there (FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Hoover, and Nixon), plus other people who like to fish and shoot things, some more obvious than others (John Wayne, Sean Connery ... Sally Field?). Walls, floors and ceiling were beautifully polished dark wood, and there were trophy animals covering most every surface except for one corner where there was inexplicably a life-size pirate mannequin.
Overnight at anchor, we were a little disappointed not to see any alligators, but we did have a clear view of the Milky Way. It’s always shocking to remember how many stars are up there.
Key West doesn’t generally come up on lists of Old Florida locations, but the charm it retains is undeniably Old Florida. At one time, I’m sure people went there to catch ocean breezes from sleepy bungalow porches.
Now, they go to drive around in golf carts and take selfies in front of the Southernmost Point buoy. That, I believe, is New Florida. In Key West, we stayed at a marina with a pool and found a lot of Long Island, an interesting contrast with the northern midwesterners we’ve been seeing for so long and an indication that we’ve transitioned from the I-75 to the I-95 corridor. These things still seem to matter even though most everyone gets down here by airplane. Old Florida, New Florida.
Earlier, we experienced a similar Old Forida/New Florida melange in Fort Myers, which was definitely Old Florida back in the day when Edison and Ford built summer homes there (guys, did you know that Ford got his first job from Edison and they became lifelong friends and spent vacations together? And that Firestone hung out with them there too while they all tried to figure out how to make synthetic rubber?). Today, though, the town is nicely manicured and there are several chain crab shacks plus a Starbucks. New Florida.
And then there was Naples, totally New Florida, where we had a shockingly delicious dinner at Osteria Tulia, and chartered a fishing boat for Felix’s birthday. (See previous post for fishing details.) Naples is not really our style but we found it unexpectedly enjoyable, with a lovely long fishing pier and an endless procession of expensive cars (there was a Ferrari show, plus your everyday Porsches and Lamborghinis and such).
After all this Florida exploration, the place we’ve ended up spending the most time since Port Charlotte is Marathon, which as far as I can tell is not even a real place. It’s a municipal district spanning a handful of islands, lacking a core, but identifiable by an intensified concentration of liquor stores and t-shirt shops along Route 1. To accommodate a family birthday celebration and our very first overnight boat guest, we signed up for a full week at a “resort marina” here, only a couple of hours drive south of Miami airport. Here, we have access to a beautiful lush pool and hot tub, excellent WiFi, all the water and power we need, and 24-hour security – all so nice that we extended that one week to two. On the downside there’s no laundry facility, no showers, and pumpout requires moving the whole boat to a different basin. But, you know, I’m typing this on a lounge chair under a palm tree.
Soon we’ll pull out of here and start heading north and east in earnest to check out some essential New Florida sights — like South Beach, and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter — but we’re still keeping an eye out for Old Florida wherever we can.