Destination Spotlight - Gulf Coast - Florida USA

Back on the mainland, Naples offers excellent shopping, numerous art galleries, fine restaurants and a number of challenging golf courses. The Naples Zoo is a popular local attraction with families. Naples is on the doorstep of the Everglades National Park and the area offers a number of airboat and eco-tours for close encounters with the local wildlife.

Just south of Naples, measuring four miles wide by six miles long, Marco Island is a popular beach destination whose population more than doubles during the high season from January to March. Visitors are welcomed at South Marco Beach and Tigertail beach which has a child’s play area, showers and refreshments. There are also two residents’ only beaches. The area is a nesting area for many birds including Least Terns and Black Skimmers and various species of Sandpipers. Herons, egrets, ibis, turns, sandpipers, plovers and gulls can all be seen in the tidal bay between Tigertail Beach and Sand Dollar Island. If you are lucky, you may even spot the odd Osprey overhead. Water sports are popular activities here and there are many sea excursions and fishing trips available locally as well as yacht charter and sailing schools.

In 1947 the Everglades was declared a National Park and protects rare and endangered species such as the American crocodile and Florida panther. The eerie landscape of mangrove swamps and sawgrass prairies has been portrayed in many Hollywood films but there is no substitute for getting up close and personal with this fascinating eco-system. There are a variety of park tours available including National Park Ranger-led tours and activities. An air-boat ride through the swamp is a truly exhilarating experience that should not be missed.

How to get there

There are also airports in Fort Myers, St Petersburg, Naples and Sarasota. Flying into one of these regional airports usually involves a stop elsewhere in the States. For example, US Airways offer flights from Manchester and Gatwick to Fort Myers via Philadelphia; Continental offers flights to Fort Myers from Gatwick and Manchester via Newark; NorthWest Airways offers flights from Gatwick via Detroit to Sarasota; Delta offers flights from Gatwick to Sarasota, via Newark; Continental offers flights from Gatwick to Tampa, via Houston and United Airlines offers flights from Heathrow to Tampa via Washington or Chicago. These are just a small selection of the possible variations but, if you want to cut down your driving time, flying into one of the regional airports further down the coast could be your best option. The flights are often priced similarly, if not cheaper, than flying directly into Orlando.

Car hire in Florida is available frompick-up points across the State including Kissimmee, Orlando, Sanford, Miami, Naples, St Petersburg, Clearwater, Fort Myers, Sarasota, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Key West.

To get to the gulf coast resorts from Orlando, follow the I-4 until it joins MidWest I-75 which follows the coast, close to all the main holiday resorts from Tampa to Naples.

Climate

The Floridian climate is renowned for being pleasant year round. November through to April is usually warm and mostly dry. This is high season in southern Florida, when the Canadians fly south for warmer weather. During these months, you’ll find local accommodation prices are usually at their highest. May through to October is hot and humid. Although, when it does rain, it is usually in short bursts and often in the late afternoon. June to November is the hurricane season.

January is usually the coolest month whilst July and August tend to be the hottest and most humid.

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