Florida Panhandle

We’ve traveled extensively in Florida in the past seeing both coasts and much of the Central part of the state. This is our first trip to the Panhandle. Unlike the rest of Florida, only the very coastline itself is built up, you travel 5 miles inland and all you’ll see is endless pine forests. A bit cooler than South Florida, spring and summer come a bit later here. After a long Vermont winter, the 75 degree weather feels great.

We stopped at Ponce de Leon State park for a picnic and to hike around the beautiful “Fountain of Youth” spring gushing out of the ground, the water temperature is 70 year round. Air was too cool for us to swim but what a nice picnic spot. As is true all over this state, we had to be careful of the Alligators.

We spent 5 days at St Andrews State Park, we really enjoyed it. The beaches are the nicest we’ve seen anywhere in Florida, crystal clear waters with almost pure white super fine sand. The campground and facilities were spotless with nice water views from our site. We finally slept in our camper, a nice snug refuge from the Tropical creepy crawlers slithering about. The deer were like pets, obviously well fed by campers. Raccoons and Armadillos appeared at night looking for food to steal, we kept all food in the truck. We set the tent up as a changing room and for storage, worked great. People were here from all over the Midwest and East but we were the only New Englanders. We’ve already driven more than 3000 miles.