Florida Travel Guide

If one speaks of Florida, most people will think of the east coast and the endless dreamy beaches, elegant holiday resorts and Miami, a large city that cannot be matched and that places visitors under a spell with its incomparable flair.

Resorts are lined up on the sandy beach, which one suspects just goes on forever, like pearls on a necklace. A visit to every town and settlement can be a worthwhile experience, however, as each boasts its own individual character; from crazy to sophisticated, industrial to sleepy, old-fashioned to futuristic. On the whole, it is quieter in the north than in the turbulent south that features the unofficial capital city of Miami. St. Augustine, the oldest town in the USA, is located here, and in the pretty old town, characteristics of the Spanish colonial era can still be distinguished. Further south lies Daytona Beach, one of the most bustling holiday resorts on the Atlantic coast. Those interested in taking a trip into the great unknown will obvious not be able to ignore Cape Canaveral, the famous spaceport. Every few months, rockets launch from here and offer visitors an impressive spectacle to marvel at. The pretty beach of the nearby costal resort of Cocoa Beach is also a particularly good viewpoint. The Gold Coast, the southernmost part of Florida's Atlantic coast, begins at luxurious Palm Beach where every inhabitant belongs to the American upper class.

However, Miami is the city that throws all others into shadow, as it is a lively, exotic metropolis that has developed alongside New York into the most important cultural and social centre on the east coast of the United States over the past centuries.

Whilst the east coast of Florida is like an endlessly long, sandy beach with numerous metropolises, the west coast appears to be the idyllic side of the Sunshine State. There are hidden bays, picturesque villages and sleepy little islands here.

However, the side fringing the Gulf of Mexico also boasts several cities worth consideration: Tampa with its big city flair, countless shops and attractions, vast St. Petersburg, which has shot to fame as the healthiest city in the USA due to its climate, not to forget pretty Sarasota or luxurious Naples. Also impressive are the wonderful beaches that lie nearby and the glorious weather with the sun shining here an average of 360 days a year. It is therefore hardly surprising that everyday life here seems to run at quite a leisurely pace. Visitors will find the ideal conditions for relaxing and leave their everyday stresses behind. Even the waves only break gently upon the shore and, when the sun sets in a most fabulously colourful fashion in the evenings, making one feel like they have truly arrived in paradise.

• Daytona Beach
• Destin
• Fort Lauderdale
• Jacksonville
• Key West
• Kissimmee

• Miami
• Naples
• Orlando
• Sarasota
• Tampa