Florida Travel Guide

Florida is Americans' top vacation destination, with Orlando in first place and Miami not far behind. 

From theme parks to the Everglades, to the Atlantic on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other, there are lots of places to let the kid in you out to play. 

Florida's Top Vacation Spots

Cape Canaveral – The Kennedy Space Center

Daytona Beach – great surf, drive on the beach

The Emerald Coast, Panama City to Pensacola – consistently rated among the best beaches in the world

Miami – mild winter weather, ambiance, watersports

Orlando – theme parks galore, SeaWorld's Discovery Cove is my favorite

St. Augustine – oldest permanent European settlement in North America

Florida History

Seeking a rumored fountain of youth in Florida, Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon landed here in 1513.  A quarter-million Native Americans already lived here, though.  Early settlements were attacked.  But Spanish explorers, missionaries, and settlers kept coming anyway.  

St. Augustine, founded by taking over a Timucuan Indian village in 1565, is the oldest permanent European settlement in North America.

In 1821, the United States traded Texas to Spain in exchange for Florida.  In 1845 Florida became a state.  But it wasn’t until the late 1800s that railroads came into Florida, bringing  farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and tourists.  Luxury hotels sprang up, and by the 1920s vacationers were flocking to Florida for its warm winters.  Sales of land boomed, then busted with the Great Depression. 

Cypress Gardens (near Winter Haven) opened in 1936, and Marineland opened a few years later near St. Augustine.  They were the forerunners of all the theme parks Walt Disney would open decades later near Orlando.

After World War II, the invention of air conditioning made Florida's heat comfortable for retirees and summer tourists.  Still today, though, most of Florida’s population lives along the coast.  In the interior are ranches, spring-fed rivers, and the Everglades.