Most states in the US have given themselves some sort of descriptive marketing name to help individualise themselves.  These names are frequently found in their marketing slogans and on their licence plates.  For instance, Texas is The Lone Star State, Minnesota is The Land of 10,000 Lakes and Georgia is the Peach State.  But no state has adopted a more appropriate and appealing name than Florida – The Sunshine State.  Vacationing and retiring Americans from all over the eastern seaboard and the Midwest flock to Florida, especially in winter, to take advantage of it’s famous sunshine, beaches and retirement lifestyle.   And after 6,000 miles of travel we had finally made it too.

We had been very surprised and impressed by the white sandy beaches and surfside communities of Mississippi and Alabama – I mean really, who would have thunk it?  But Florida, well, we absolutely expected to see endless beaches and wall to wall sunshine.  And Florida delivered big time.

The Florida panhandle, the narrow strip that marks its most western reaches, starts at Pensacola and runs eastward through Panama City and on to Tallahassee.  We hugged the gulf coast as closely as we could, ducking into little beachside communities along the way and stopping to survey the beaches at many points.  And being beach connoisseurs we loved what we found – blindingly white sandy beaches with almost dusty fine grains of sand, beautiful blue-green water with a one metre surf and sunseekers in their thousands enjoying the beautiful conditions.

At Pensacola Beach we were so swept up with the scene, even sacrilegiously saying these beaches rival those in California or Australia, that we donned the swimmers, grabbed the towels and spent a couple of hours lolling about on the sand with all the other beach goers, swimming in the surf, eating hot chippies and drinking beer at the beach for lunch.  As you do!

We also discovered a new camping option of ‘primitive’ camping in the Florida state forests.  An obscure sandy track took us to a beautiful secluded spot amongst the Ponderosa pines which we owned for the night.  Top drawer.

But we also recalculated our recent pace of travel – averaging about 100 miles per day over the last week or so – and realised we had to pick up the pace a little bit or we would fall far behind our rough Big Plan schedule.  We had many things on our list to do in southern Florida and then our plan was to travel up the Atlantic coastline of the Sunshine States and that meant some longer driving days would be needed.

As we travelled south along the gulf coast we occasionally pulled in to explore a state park or a popular seaside town, and for two days it was in the very non-sunshine pouring rain.  It appeared we had caught the early sessions of their wet season.  But after a couple of days tootling southward we finally reached our first major destination of our Sunshine State experience – the famous Everglades National Park.

This huge national park and its adjoining Big Cypress National Preserve are protectors of the unique swamps and wetlands of southern Florida.  Seasonal waters flow from the north into this complex eco-system and an amazing variety of flora and fauna prosper as a result of this unique environment.  It’s not always an easy place to visit with heavy monsoonal rains and absolutely ferocious mosquitos for a large part of the year.  Nevertheless, we were tough, brave and well-armed to fight back in any circumstances.

As it turned out, just as well.  Early monsoonal rain, absolutely bucketing down Bangkok style, greeted us at the western edge of the park where we slipped in between rain attacks a relaxing and enjoyable 90 minute boat tour of the edge of the park known as the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.  Nothing white knuckle about this trip but we did enjoy plying the water between the mangrove islands and spotted numerous birds, some playful dolphins and our first ever manatees.  Very cool.

After a leisurely drive along the northern edges of the park, sometimes being pummelled by rain, we settled in to camp at Long Pine Key campground within the park.  The sun briefly came out, the mosquitos attacked from all directions and we toasted our survival.

Our plan the next day was to drive down to the end of the road to a place called Flamingo, stopping along the way to explore the various aspects of this unique park.  Using military Deet to keep the mossies from carrying us away we had a fabulous day doing various short walks that highlighted the amazing eco-diversity of this complex environment.  In essence, waters from the wet season rains start up north at Lake Okeechobee and flush through the huge everglades area, providing nutrients and food for the many life forms that support each other.

The remote outpost of Flamingo, positioned virtually at the southern end of mainland Florida, was an old fishing village until the national park was established but after successive hurricanes destroyed some infrastructure and the combination of harsh weather and intolerable bugs make this a very seasonal destination at best.  Closer to the main gate we really enjoyed the Anhinga walk at the Royal Palm site.  This was an outstanding boardwalk stroll, taking in the various bird life, alligators, turtles and fish.  If you only had time to dip a toe into this huge national park then your best move would be to do this short walk.  Great stuff.

We then crossed over the highway and briefly visited Biscayne National Park which is a marine park protecting America’s only barrier coral reef and some beautiful inland waterways.  Not an easy place to see without any roads or walks but we did our best before moving on to the Florida Keys.

We began our journey out to Key West via the long string of islands connected by a fabulous road and bridge system.  We didn’t get too far before stopping in famous Key Largo for the night, a fitting end to a great everglades day.

The next morning we entered John Pennekamp State Park, one of the most popular and heavily used parks we’ve visited on our travels. The southern Florida coast features the third largest barrier coral reef in the world (behind the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and another one in Belize) and this state park provides the best access to it for those who want to get aquatic.  We’re always ready for a good snorkel so jumped on one of their snorkel trips out to the reef and enjoyed an absolutely fabulous morning snorkelling in the warm Florida waters.

We admit we’ve become snorkel snobs but this reef delivered the goods, and then some.  It did not feature colourful hard corals like we have seen in other places but there was an amazing array of fan corrals in many different colours.  A fan coral looks like, well, a giant fan that you might flutter in front of your face to keep cool but these have intricate patterns and some are almost as big as an umbrella.  But most impressive was the colours, ranging from a bright purple and more modest shades of purple to many shades of brown, gold and yellow.  We also saw some great fish including trigger fish, parrot fish, lots of other good stuff and some beautiful barracudas.

Unfortunately our little camera’s battery went on holidays that morning so you’ll just have to take it as a given.

The Florida Keys are a fascinating geographic phenomenon, a string of islands – or keys – linked together by a series of bridges, one of which stretches seven miles.  The drive is slow as there is basically only one road for all travellers and commerce but the views are stunning – islands dotting the waterways on both sides, beautiful clear blue-green water, sparkling sandy beaches or deep green mangroves, long arching bridges, the sun shining hard and bright, just beautiful.

We made slow going but eventually arrived at Key West, the last town on the last key, famous for its history, quirky residents, Ernest Hemingway, beautiful old homes, being the southern-most point in continental United States and as a mecca for people with money, people who want to fish or people who want to get away from it all.

We had reached a symbolic geographic turn in our journey – we finished our first leg of travelling east across southern United States and the next leg would be travelling north, more or less, along the eastern seaboard into Canada.  But first we had some unfinished business in Key West.

If you want to see one of the friends we made in the Everglades try this: