The rich history of cigars and the City of Tampa reach back to the 1860s. Named after the founder who brought cigar manufacturing to the area, Vicente Martinez Ybor, Ybor City still bears the name of the cigar tycoon. Ybor City was once the world's cigar capital, producing over half a billion hand-rolled cigars yearly. [...]
Florida’s Highway 30A was a recent discovery. Planning a trip to this area started with a simple search of Florida State Parks and snowballed into a full-blown weekend beach vacation. Located in the panhandle of Florida, the charm of this 24-mile highway will leave you feeling transported into another world. The landscape along this breathtaking [...]
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be dropped off on a private island where all of your needs would be tended to? On my recent trip to the island, I was impressed by the number of facilities available. Caladesi Island State Park comes pretty close to providing all the beach essentials [...]
Honeymoon Island is one of Florida’s most popular State Parks. The white sand beaches softly blending into turquoise water are just like the advertisements for Visit Florida. The shore is sprinkled with sun-bleached shells ripe for the picking to take home as a souvenir. It’s easy to see why many people chose Honeymoon Island as [...]
Hunsader Farms is like an amusement park loaded with farm activities. The humble beginnings of the Hunsader Farm started with an eighty-acre crop of tomatoes. Over the decades, the farm has grown to add additional buildings to the property, including a barn to house produce for the farmer's market, an ice cream shop, and a [...]
My visit to Cow Creek Farm started early before the Florida sun could warm the air on this cloudless morning. A faded green tractor hauling a wagon rattled into place, ready for our tour around the fifteen-acre farm. As I walked to the check-in booth, the farm’s two resident donkeys greeted me with a bellowing [...]
Tarpon Springs is known for two things; Greek food and sponges. The two may seem like an unlikely pairing; however, the relationship started in the early 1900s, when Greek sponge divers settled in Tarpon Springs and created a thriving industry selling natural sponges harvested from the Gulf of Mexico. Today, Tarpon Springs relies mainly on [...]
Sunsational Farms is an hour North of Orlando in Umatilla, Florida. I knew I had arrived when I was greeted by the enormous glowing orange perched on the front lawn. This overgrow orange has acted as a roadside attraction in many towns across Florida since the 70s. After being abandoned in a field, it was [...]
Amid stop-and-go traffic on searing blacktop pavement lies a tropical roadside oasis. St. Petersburg's Sunken Gardens is one of Florida’s last roadside attractions. Its humble beginnings started as a hobby for the landowner who drained this land of its marshy water and created the tropical garden we continue to enjoy over a hundred years later. [...]
The humidity in Florida has been less repressive for the last week. So, taking advantage of the slightly comfortable weather and needing to break in my new hiking boots, I set out to visit the Hillsborough River State Park. The chaos of Tampa melts into the background as you turn off Highway 301, and towering [...]
