Florida will always be a nostalgic destination. Lisa grew up road tripping there every summer with her two sisters and mother to visit the town where she grew up. For most, it's a place where the snowbirds go, but Florida for her will always be the feeling of youth. Both of Lisa’s parents live there now. Her dad is close to Orlando and her mom is in Fort Walton Beach. As a result, whenever we're in the south we jump at the opportunity to visit the parents. We got to explore some of Lisa’s personal favorite & secret spots that she frequented while living in Florida for a short time after college.

For Victor, there was no exception to the connection as Florida is known as NYC’s sixth borough. His first time on a plane was to Disney World. There’s been countless memories of family trips and high school trips to the state. Miami Art Basel was another reason he returned many times in recent years for work.

After painting the Greetings from Orlando mural we drove the furthest Southeast we could go all the way to Key West! We celebrated our first full year on the road 2016. We visited the Hemingway House where we saw cats with 6 toes and had our own key lime pie tasting contest. Our winner was Key West Key Lime Pie Co! We figured out that renting bikes was the best way to see Key West and left our RV at the campground where we stayed for a couple nights. There was also an ordinance where we couldn’t drive the RV below a certain point on the island. The best beach we found was Smather's Beach where we put our hammock between two palm trees and called it a day relaxing and doing nothing.

Getting back to the mainland of Florida, we visited Everglades National Park. We got our wildlife fix of alligators and manatees over there. There was one parking lot near a trail that provided covers for your car for some reason. We quickly realized that it was to protect from vultures who had a habit of chewing on windshield wipers and rubber car parts. Since we couldn’t cover our RV, we didn’t stay in that spot too long!

After the national park, we went north along the Atlantic coast to St. Augustine and Jacksonville. We've been to Florida a few times since being on the road and places we return include Ocala National Forest and Bok Tower Gardens. Going further north into Georgia, we got to check out Cumberland Island National Seashore that was full of wild horses.

There’s no question that we will always be back in Florida so there will definitely be more blog posts to come as we try to explore some lesser known locations throughout the state. Stay tuned!

The Florida nature & travel photos above shot by Lisa Beggs.

Year: 2016