Outlining the Edges of Florida, or what we're up to next!

We're re-branding the blog from Middle States to Edges of Florida!  

I've wanted to drive down the Atlantic coast of Florida via the A1A, from the top near Georgia, all the way to the bottom in Key West.  And then come back up the Gulf coast side from the Everglades to the Alabama state line.

But after taking our Middle States trip, that's too ambitious for us for a single trip.  So instead of 46 days, we're tapering back to less than a month.

In order to keep the essence of the Edges of Florida, we're making some allowances.  For starters, we drove along the A1A from the most northern part in Nassau county on and around Amelia Island.  And we've been on A1A along the coast in St. Augustine and down around Flagler Beach.  We have taken several cruises from Port Canaveral so we've been on the A1A in the Cocoa Beach area.  So rather than starting from the north, we're going to start from the middle.

We also learned on our Middle States trip that we like to be in the same sleeping place for a few days at a time rather than packing up every day.  And for the things we want to see and do along the coastal edges, this will work out.

We're starting our trip from Walt Disney World.  You see, we are Disney Vacation Club members, so we'll head there for our starting line.  We made a reservation at the Old Key West resort which seems fitting for the theme of our trip!  

From Orlando, we're headed to Vero Beach.  There's a Disney Vacation Club resort there, too.  We've only stayed there once and that was about 15 years ago for New Years.  This time we're planning to stay for three nights and use the resort as our hub to explore the area.  There are multiple Florida State Parks nearby that we'd like to see.  And there are also several gardens that are part of the American Horticulture Society's Reciprocal Garden Network.  We bought our membership in March 2024 so it would be valid through the end of March 2025 so we could use it for our Edges of Florida trip.

From Vero Beach, we're headed to Fort Lauderdale where we'll have time to sightsee for a day before boarding the Grandeur of the Seas for a 9-night Southern Caribbean cruise.  As I mentioned before, we've often sailed from Port Canaveral, but since we were planning to drive down to Key West, we looked to see if there were any cruise itineraries that left from Fort Lauderdale or Miami that we might want to do - as long as we were going to be down there anyway!  The cruise has four new-to-us ports, so we're looking forward to that as well.

After the cruise, we're headed to the Keys for several days.  We want to go to the Dry Tortugas National Park while we're there.  I've only been to Key West once and that was on our first cruise in 2005.  DH had been another time for work, but that was about 35 years ago.  We want to visit several of the state parks up and down the Keys as well as some of the touristy things in Key West.

From the Keys, we plan to go through Everglades National Park on the way to southwest Florida.  We'll spend a few days in the Fort Myers area so we can check out Sanibel Island and the Edison-Ford Winter Estates.  We'll spend another day or two a little further north as my friend in North Port has told us how much she loves Stump Pass Beach State Park.  The photos she has shared are absolutely beautiful, so we'd like to go see it!

One thing I've wanted to do for many years is take an airboat ride.  When I was researching them initially, I saw that they are offered at Myakka River State Park.  So we thought we could do that while working our way further north.  But alas, while looking for the information to share in this post, I found an article from 2018 where the airboats have been replaced by pontoon boats.  So I guess we'll scratch that and just enjoy doing something else on our way towards Tarpon Springs.

We're ending our Edges of Florida tour in Tarpon Springs because everywhere north of there is easy enough for a day-trip or overnight get-away.  And while we won't be tracing the edges of the panhandle of Florida on this trip, we are thinking about planning another trip that would finish the job.  I'd like to go to Bellingrath Gardens near Mobile, so we might as well make an adventure out of the trip over!

Writing our blog for the Middle States trip was useful for our planning, so I expect it will be the same for this one.  This morning I re-shopped the hotels we have reserved and shaved $75 off the costs due to lower rates being available.  So thank you, past self, for that travel planning recommendation! 

We hope you'll follow along and offer any suggestions for places to see and things to do along our route.  You all were so helpful to us with our Middle States trip!

~ Cindy D.