This small town festival celebrates a uniquely Lake Placid product: caladiums, a colorful plant grown commercially almost nowhere else. There’ll be music, food, a car show, arts and crafts and ticketed rides on 1920s steam locomotive.
Orlando/Central Florida
Mount Dora has a lively downtown and a well-preserved historic district on a pretty lake. It’s a walkable small town with good dining and shopping. We love the great kayaking and biking nearby.
I’m always on the lookout for affordable camping in nice public parks, and I found a real gem in Central Florida. Love the lakes. Love all the trails. Love the campsite. $25/night.
We know what the big draw is in Orlando, and it’s not nature. But it should be! Even if your destination is a theme park, here are 9 natural experiences and places that are memorable additions to a visit to Central Florida
The Dora Canal could be the prettiest one mile you’ll paddle in Florida. The waterway connects Lake Dora and Lake Eustis in Tavares, just west of Mount Dora.
Florida Southern College in Lakeland has been named one of the 20 most beautiful college campuses in the country. The campus is unique: Nowhere else in the world has more buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Van Fleet Trail into the Green Swamp is one of the most rural, isolated rides you’ll find in Florida. It’s flat. It’s straight. But if you want to truly get away from it all and encounter a little wildlife along the way, here’s the place.
What might be our favorite Florida zoo just made the US News and World Report list of best zoos in the US. The Brevard Zoo is not huge, but it is highly interactive, including offering kayaking on waterways through the zoo. It’s in Melbourne, which makes a great weekend getaway destination.
Sebring, a small town along the lovely Lake Wales Ridge in Central Florida, is staking a claim for something new — Florida’s first (and only) craft soda festival, the Sebring Soda Festival. Local small-batch sodas made with real sugar are making a comeback, partly as an outgrowth of the craft beer phenomenon. This Sebring festival is a good opportunity to taste what it’s all about.
Fireflies in Florida? It’s a thing! Blue Spring State Park offers special viewing in spring ‘firefly season.’