Florida Day Trips & Discoveries
Worn out the numbers on your credit cards? Looking for a restful break in your vacation? Here are 6 day trips within tw0-hour’s drive of Orlando that won’t break your pocket book. And as a bonus, these will give the kids a glimpse of a Florida they won’t find at the theme parks: 1. Silver [...]
Silver Springs, FL — How long has Silver Springs been a Florida attraction? Depends on how you reckon it, but people have been coming here for a long time indeed. About 10,000 years ago, the Timucuan Indians gathered at the headwaters of the Silver River to hunt Columbian Mammoths. In the mid 1950s, the lovely [...]
Central Florida’s 19th-century history returns to Ocala each November at the Ocali Country Days festival, hosted by the Silver River Museum and Environmental Education Center. From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, festival visitors get to experience life as it was in 1800’s Marion County through a wide variety of displays and activities. Historical [...]
LAKELAND, FL — Some of Florida’s best bass fishing takes place out of public view in the state’s phosphate pits. Your best opportunities to catch a trophy largemouth bass begins by scoring an invitation to one of the deep lakes left behind from limestone mining. But if you’re short on friends or looking for a [...]
TARPON SPRINGS, FL — A good vacation can remind us how pleasant it is to stay at home. To that end, a day trip that includes the northbound drive from Clearwater to to Tarpon Springs along US Highway 19 may be especially effective. Try it. Go ahead. Fasten the kids into the backseat on a [...]
CHIEFLAND, FL — When naturalist William Bartram visited Manatee Springs in the late 1700s, he said the place was astonishing: “This charming nymphaeum is the product of primitive nature, not to be imitated, much less equaled, by the united effort of human power and ingenuity!” Two centuries later, much of that beauty remains. “Two hundred [...]
SILVER SPRINGS, FL — Deep under the shade of cypress, swamp maple and sable palms, central Florida’s Ocklawaha River runs clear and cool, even now in the stifling heat of summer. Out here on a weekday afternoon, far removed from the sound of civilization, you can kayak through a forest so thick you’ll wonder if [...]
BUSHNELL — During the first weekend of January, hundreds gather from around the country to re-create an event that forever changed the face of Florida. It was late December 1835, and the U.S. government planned to begin its Indian removal in just a few days. One hundred and eight soldiers, under the command of Major [...]
“We feel compelled to warn our readers about this crank in Apalachicola who thinks he can make ice as good as the Lord Almighty.” –New York Globe You may not know the name John Gorrie, but you’ve no doubt given thanks for the product of his imagination time and again this summer: every time you [...]