Corkscrew Sanctuary could be hosting lots of orchid fans again this summer, as its rare ghost orchid has formed buds. The ghost orchid was made famous by the 2002 film “Adaptation” starring Meryl Streep and the best-selling “Orchid Thief,” by Susan Orlean.
The 2018 Charlotte Harbor Freedom Swim begins at 11 a.m. July 4, but while folks cross the 1.5-mile wide Peace River, this isn’t a race. It’s a “happening” and one of the few ways to celebrate the Fourth of July in Florida and stay cool.
The beach town of Marco Island is all manicured and modern, but here are four adventures into the wild and authentic Florida that are within a quick drive. You can wade across a lagoon to a wild beach or have lunch in a funky fishing town or stroll on a boardwalk into a beautiful old growth cypress swamp.
Crossing the state on Alligator Alley? Here are tips on a how to spend 15 minutes, a half hour or a half day exploring the Everglades from I-75. This mile marker guide helps you decide where to stop and what to do along the way.
Seafood lovers mark their calendars for the annual Everglades Seafood Festival, scheduled for the weekend of Feb. 9-11, 2018, in Everglades City, gateway to the Ten Thousand Islands. This free event packs ’em in for fresh seafood, country music, carnival rides, crafts booths — with an estimated 50,000 people expected to attend this year’s event in a remote corner of Florida.
You can get gator tail and swamp cabbage at this festival. But the real reason to go is to revel in a last corner of small town America in Florida — beauty pageants, high school bands, armadillo races and a rodeo.
This isn’t frozen shrimp or imported shrimp or farmed shrimp. The huge boiling pots at the Fort Myers Beach Shrimp Festival are filled with fresh, right-off-the-boat Gulf pink shrimp. Members of the Lions Club have perfected the cooking technique over 50 years of Shrimp Festivals.
This tiny fishing village wedged between Bradenton and Anna Marie Island celebrates its rich heritage as a commercial fishing hub.
For paddle boarding, it would be hard to find a better destination than Tampa Bay. In addition to beaches and bays, you can paddle amid mangrove islands, in tannic rivers with alligators and, within a two hour drive, one of the most spectacular clear spring runs in Florida.
Stone crab season starts Oct. 15 and it has never been more critical for Everglades City, a small, isolated fishing village, where stone crabs are an important part of the economy. Everglades City was flooded with an 8-to-10-foot storm surge during Hurricane Irma and more than 100 homes in the town with a population just over 400 were destroyed.
