Everyone who makes Florida a vacation destination already knows most of the top places to go: Disneyworld, the other happiest place on Earth; St. Augustine, the oldest European-based city in the country; Universal Studios Florida, one of a number of Universal Studios theme parks proliferating about the globe (for instance, there’s one on Sentosa Island, just off of Singapore). Everyone knows, too, that there are great places to stay in Florida — fine, luxury hotels that make traveling an absolute pleasure — but what about destinations people don’t think of immediately? How about something different?
Here’s a few sights and landmarks you might not have otherwise expected to see while in Florida: The Coral Castle in Florida is a man-made structure that doesn’t resemble a castle, but draws in visitors year after year. It’s a collection of heavy coral rock, artfully and mysteriously arranged, by a man named Ed Leedskalnin, a Latvian immigrant who excavated and carved and installed over two million pounds of the rock, although he himself was only about five feet tall and weighed just a hundred pounds. He wanted to impress a 16-year-old girl named Agnes Scuffs, who had already jilted him the day before their wedding. In Ochopee, Florida, you might stop in at the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters. While it’s true that the headquarters look a lot like a roadside attraction, the two brothers who run the place are tracking down the Florida equivalent of the Pacific Northwest’s Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch. Apparently, the Floridian version of Big Foot is pretty smelly, providing a reason for the name Skunk Ape. Also in Ochopee, you can find America’s smallest post office. It used to be a shed for irrigation pipe, and once a fire destroyed the Ochopee general store, which contained the post office, the office moved into the 7×8 shed. Because the town’s population is about eleven, there hasn’t been a real pressing reason to move it since then.
Of course if the sights in the preceding paragraph don’t suffice, there’s always Dinosaur World in Plant City, Florida (it was formerly Gator Jungle, which was a gator farm and swamp walk); over ten years now, though, it’s been Dinosaur World, aka, “The World’s Largest Dinosaur Park.” You’ll know you’ve arrived when you see a full size Ultrasaurus and two Tyrannosaurus Rexes out by the interstate!
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