Frommers ShortCuts - The Florida Keys, including the Everglades and Biscayne National Park

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ISBN 9781118189337 (ebk); ISBN 9781118189320 (ebk); ISBN 9781118189313 (ebk)

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About the Authors

Lesley Abravanel is a freelance journalist and a graduate of the University of Miami School of Communication. When she isnt combing Florida for the latest hotels, restaurants, and attractions, she is on the lookout for vacationing celebrities, about whom she writes in her weekly nightlife column, Velvet Underground, and her twice weekly gossip column and daily blog, Scene In the Tropics, for the Miami Herald . She is a contributor to several of the illustrious supermarket tabloids; blogs about the Miami restaurant and bar scene as editor of Eater Miami ; is the Miami listings editor for BlackBook.com; and is the author of Frommers South Florida and Frommers Portable Miami.

Laura Miller is a freelance writer based in Buffalo, New York, though shes spent countless hours scouring Central Floridas theme parks over the yearsboth with and without her 5 kids. A family-travel expert who religiously makes several annual pilgrimages to the Land the Mouse Built, shes written extensively about the area for many magazines; operates a family-travel website, www.travel-insights.com ; and is also the author of Frommers Walt Disney World and Orlando .

Frommers Star Ratings, Icons & Abbreviations

Every hotel, restaurant, and attraction listing in this guide has been ranked for quality, value, service, amenities, and special features using a star-rating system. In country, state, and regional guides, we also rate towns and regions to help you narrow down your choices and budget your time accordingly. Hotels and restaurants are rated on a scale of zero (recommended) to three stars (exceptional). Attractions, shopping, nightlife, towns, and regions are rated according to the following scale: zero stars (recommended), one star (highly recommended), two stars (very highly recommended), and three stars (must-see).

In addition to the star-rating system, we also use seven feature icons that point you to the great deals, in-the-know advice, and unique experiences that separate travelers from tourists. Throughout the book, look for:

special finds those places only insiders know about

fun facts details that make travelers more informed and their trips more fun

kids best bets for kids and advice for the whole family

special moments those experiences that memories are made of

overrated places or experiences not worth your time or money

insider tips great ways to save time and money

great values where to get the best deals

The following abbreviations are used for credit cards:

AE American Express DISC Discover V Visa

DC Diners Club MC MasterCard

The Best of Florida

Colorful flamingos highlight the scene at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State park.

Theres more than beautifully sunny skies in The Sunshine State to recommend a vacation in Florida. You can visit little towns like Apalachicola or a multicultural megalopolis like Miami. You can devour fresh seafood and then work it off bicycling, golfing, or swimming. In St. Augustine, 17th-century history comes alive, while you can make a stop in the Space Age at Cape Canaveral. Florida maintains thousands of acres of wilderness, from Clam Pass County Park in downtown Naples to Everglades National Park, spanning the states southern tip.

Cities Capital Tallahassee blends modernity with the Old South. Orlando draws families with its theme parks: Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and SeaWorld. The Gulf Coast seaport of Tampa marks one of the states growing commercial centers. At Floridas southern tip, Miami draws vacationers with its spicy mix of Latin American and Caribbean culture and steamy nightlife.

Lay of the Land Miles of golden-sand beaches and seaside cottages invite leisurely drives along the Gulf Coast of Floridas Panhandle. In central Florida, youll find acres of citrus groves. Alligator Alley crosses southern Florida from Naples to Weston, leading cars and bikes past the sawgrass, cypress, and gumbo-limbo trees of the Everglades.

Eating & Drinking Drink freshly squeezed juice or stop at roadside stands for a bag of tangerines. Florida cuisine can mean many things, but we suppose Floribbean, the fusion of Caribbean and Latin flavors with the local Florida flavors (indigenous fruits and veggies like avocado, star fruit, coconut, Key lime, kumquat, and passion fruit; and fresh seafood like spiny lobster and stone crabs), says it best.

Beaches Family-friendly beaches await visitors in the Panhandle, where long, sun-kissed days include swimming and building sandcastles. Beachcombers collect seashells on Sanibel and Captiva Islands. Drive Floridas surf-sprayed A1A expressway along the Atlantic coast, past lighthouses and bikini beaches from Daytona all the way to Miami. Palm trees and fruity cocktails keep the locals cool and relaxed in the southern islands of the Florida Keys.

Hanging in There After a few rocky years, Florida is bouncing back to normalcy. Florida is never actually normal, per se, which makes it all that much more fun. Though not entirely recovered from the recession that hit the state almost harder than a category 5 hurricane, Florida has shown signs of reboundeven in the most daunting of times, that is, until 2010s epic BP disaster, in which for most of the spring and summer, crude challenged Hawaiian Tropic as the states unofficial oil.

The selections in this chapter are just some of the highlights. With an open mind and a sense of adventure, youll come up with your own bests.