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Apalachicola, Florida
A small Panhandle port where the river meets the bay, with a grid of historic squares and a riverfront once lined with brick warehouses. It feels nothing like resort Florida: shrimp boats, porches and a slow pace.
The oyster story is the reason to come now. The bay was closed to harvesting in 2020, and the state reopened a limited season in January 2026, with a smaller one running into February 2027, so local oysters are back but scarce. The John Gorrie Museum on Gorrie Square holds a replica of the ice machine a local doctor invented, which makes a fitting stop in a town this humid.
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Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park
A huge spring south of Tallahassee with a 1937 lodge on its bank, where you can stay the night and take a ranger-led riverboat down the Wakulla River in under an hour. Expect alligators, wading birds and, in the cooler months, manatees.
Hollywood used it as a ready-made jungle: underwater scenes for Creature from the Black Lagoon were shot in the spring, and Tarzan films came before it. Boat tours depend on weather and water conditions, so book ahead and check the day before.
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Ichetucknee Springs State Park
The classic Florida tubing river: a slow float down gin-clear, spring-fed water under a canopy of cypress and hardwoods, northwest of Gainesville. It is the best answer to a hot summer day that does not involve a water park.
Summer weekends get busy, and the park limits how many people launch. The midpoint launch has been closed for repairs, so tubing currently starts from the south entrance; check the park before you plan a longer float. Outside summer, a paddle or a swim at the headspring is quieter and just as clear.
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Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park
The Cross Creek farm where Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote about backwoods Florida, including The Yearling, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939. The farmhouse, barn and a still-producing orange grove are kept much as they were in the 1930s and 1940s.
This is old rural Florida, before air conditioning and interstates. The grounds are open daily, but the house is shown only on guided tours, Thursday through Sunday. Pair it with Gainesville and the springs nearby.
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Cedar Key, Florida
A tiny island town on the Gulf at the end of a long causeway, known for clams, sunsets, kayaking among mangrove keys and a pace that makes the rest of Florida look frantic. There are no chain resorts and no theme to it.
It has taken a beating. Hurricane Helene in 2024 brought a surge of more than 9 feet, breaking the record Idalia set the year before, and the town is still rebuilding: some restaurants and the grocery store were not back by mid-2026, and lodging is limited. Visiting helps, but book a room first and expect a town in recovery.
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Three Sisters Springs (Florida)
The place to see manatees in winter. From November 15 to March 31, when the Gulf cools, manatees crowd into the warm springs at Crystal River, and the Three Sisters Springs boardwalk lets you watch them in clear water without getting wet.
During that season the springs are closed to swimmers and paddlers, and land access is by shuttle with a ticket, since there is no parking on site. Guided in-water manatee trips leave from Crystal River into Kings Bay if you want to get in the water. Come on a cold morning, when the most animals pack in.
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Silver Springs State Park
A spring near Ocala that drew tourists long before Orlando's parks, and is now a state park. Glass-bottom boat rides here are usually traced to the 1870s, and they still float over the clear springs and the fish, turtles and eelgrass below.
The odd twist is the monkeys: a troop of wild rhesus macaques lives along the Silver River, descended from animals released for a boat tour in the 1930s. Give them space if you paddle. The park suits anyone who wants old-fashioned Florida tourism without the crowds of the big parks to the south.
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St. Augustine, Florida
Founded by the Spanish in 1565, 55 years before the Pilgrims reached Plymouth, St. Augustine is where Florida's European history starts. The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States, built of coquina, a stone made of compressed shells, and it never fell to an enemy in battle.
Walk the old streets early in the morning, before day-trippers arrive, and climb the ramparts for views over Matanzas Bay. The town gets busy on weekends and during the holiday light displays, so midweek in winter is the sweet spot.
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Blue Spring State Park
About an hour north of Orlando's rides, this spring on the St. Johns River is the closest way to swap a theme park day for a wild one. In winter manatees shelter in the spring run, and on a cold day in January 2024 the park counted 932 of them.
Boats are kept out of the spring while the manatees are in, and swimmers wait until the animals leave in spring, so a winter visit means the boardwalk that follows the run right up to the spring. In warmer months it becomes a swimming and tubing spot instead. Since July 2026 every day visitor needs a reservation, which can be made up to 60 days ahead, so book before a cold weekend.
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Ybor City
Tampa's old cigar district, built after Vicente Martinez Ybor moved his factory here from Key West in 1886. Cuban, Spanish and Italian immigrants rolled cigars in its brick factories and built social clubs that still stand, and the neighborhood is now a National Historic Landmark District.
Come for the history by day: the brick streets, the old factories, the wrought-iron balconies and a few shops still rolling cigars by hand. By night Seventh Avenue turns into a loud bar strip, which is fun for some and a reason to leave for others.
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Myakka River State Park
One of the state's oldest parks, east of Sarasota, where wide prairie, oak hammocks and a shallow lake show the open, cattle-country Florida that the coast has mostly paved over. Alligators are the headline: signs warn of them throughout, and you will likely see several from the shore.
The canopy walkway takes you into the treetops, and a seven-mile scenic drive runs along Upper Myakka Lake, with more than 39 miles of hiking trails beyond it. Go in the dry season, from late fall to spring, when trails are firmer and wildlife gathers at the water.
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J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge
A refuge on Sanibel Island that protects part of the largest undeveloped mangrove ecosystem in the United States. The four-mile, one-way Wildlife Drive is the easy way in: roseate spoonbills, pelicans, herons and ibis feed in the shallows within sight of your car or bike.
Plan around the details. The drive is closed every Friday, low tide brings the best feeding, and winter has the most birds. Sanibel was hit hard by Hurricane Ian in 2022 and the refuge has been reopening in phases since, so check which trails are open before you go.
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Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary
An Audubon sanctuary inland from Naples that protects the largest remaining old-growth bald cypress forest in the world. A boardwalk of about 2.25 miles carries you dry-footed through trees around 500 years old, past wet prairie, marsh and lettuce lakes.
It is the easiest way to stand inside the old swamp that once covered much of southwest Florida, before drainage and development took it. Go early on a winter morning for birds and gentler mosquitoes; in summer the swamp is wetter, hotter and loud with frogs.
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Big Cypress National Preserve
More than 729,000 acres of cypress swamp, pine and prairie along the Tamiami Trail between Naples and Miami. It is wilder and emptier than the Everglades next door, and the drive itself is part of the experience, with alligators sunning in the roadside canals.
Stop at the visitor centers for ranger-led hikes, boardwalk talks and canoe programs, and walk the short Kirby Storter boardwalk to a gator hole, though part of it was closed after a 2025 fire. Winter is the season; summer flooding and insects make most of it hard going.
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Everglades National Park
Established in 1947 as the first national park created for its biodiversity, the Everglades protects 1.5 million acres of sawgrass, mangrove and open water at the southern tip of the state. Nothing else in Florida, or in the country, looks quite like it.
For a first visit, walk the Anhinga Trail near the Homestead entrance: 0.8 miles round trip, with alligators, turtles, anhingas and herons at close range, especially in winter. Then drive on toward Flamingo or paddle the mangrove tunnels. Summer brings heavy rain and mosquitoes that can drive you back to the car.
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John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park
Dedicated in 1960 as the country's first undersea park, Pennekamp on Key Largo protects coral reef, seagrass and mangrove a short boat ride offshore. It is the most practical way for non-divers to see Florida's living reef: snorkel trips and glass-bottom boat tours leave from the park.
The best-known sight is Christ of the Abyss, a bronze statue standing in the water at Key Largo Dry Rocks, a favorite stop on snorkel and dive trips. Wind decides everything here, so build a spare day into a Keys trip in case trips are canceled.
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Bahia Honda Key
Bahia Honda State Park
A Lower Keys island park where Henry Flagler's railroad once crossed to Key West. A short trail climbs onto a span of the Old Bahia Honda Bridge, and from the top you look down on the whole island and clear water where rays and sea turtles pass.
It also has some of the best natural beach in the Keys and good snorkeling close to shore, with boat trips out to Looe Key reef. Hurricane Irma closed parts of the park in 2017 and they reopened in stages, so check which beaches and campsites are open before you plan a stay.
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Key West
The end of the road, and the jumping-off point for Dry Tortugas. Look past the Duval Street bars and Key West is an old island town of wooden conch houses, shaded lanes and a harbor with a long seafaring past.
The Ernest Hemingway Home is the essential stop: tour the house and the writing studio behind it, and meet the six-toed cats descended from one given to Hemingway by a ship's captain. Rent a bike rather than a car, since parking is scarce, and stay for the sunset at Mallory Square.
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Dry Tortugas National Park
About 70 miles west of Key West and reachable only by boat or seaplane, this is the most remote place on the list and the most memorable. Fort Jefferson, one of the largest forts ever built, sits on a tiny key in turquoise water; work went on from 1846 to 1875 and it was never finished or fully armed.
Its most famous prisoner was Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg. Most people come on the daily ferry from Key West, which sells out, so book early; the seaplane is faster and far pricier. Bring snorkel gear for the reef along the moat wall, and pick the calmer seas of winter and spring.
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