Florida Travel Guide

Florida is the most south-eastern state in the United States of America. Known as "The Sunshine State", it became a popular winter destination for the well-to-do from colder climates over a century ago, and has gained ever greater popularity since. Its roots in agriculture are still present, with oranges being a chief export. The state postal abbreviation is FL. The capital of Florida is Tallahassee, located in the "Big Bend" area of the Florida Panhandle.

The total population of Florida as of 2000 is 15,982,378; it is the 4th largest state population in the United States. The total area of the state of Florida is 58,560 square miles (151,670 km²).

The beaches are one of the most popular attractions, along with some of the world's best known theme parks.

Florida Travel Guide - Regions

* Florida Panhandle
* North Florida
* Central Florida
* South Florida
* Florida Keys

Florida Travel Guide - Cities

There are many cities in Florida; these are some of the major ones:

* Tallahassee- The capital city
* Jacksonville
* Orlando - Theme park and resorts galore
* Tampa
* West Palm Beach
* Ft. Lauderdale
* Miami - Largest and most populated city and entry point into the Florida Keys
* Fort Myers

Some other cities in Florida include:

* Cape Coral
* Bradenton
* Port Charlotte
* Sarasota
* St. Augustine

Florida Travel Guide - Destinations

* Palm Coast
* Disney World
* Big Cypress National Preserve
* Biscayne National Park
* Canaveral National Seashore
* Dry Tortugas National Park
* Everglades National Park
* Gulf Islands National Seashore
* Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve

Florida Travel Guide - Understand

Being a coastal area, frequent precipitation is common. While the rains are often brief, they are common, and plan for rain at least one or two of your days in Florida. Many attractions such as Disney World have multiple attractions available even during downpours.

Florida Travel Guide - Talk

English is the official language of the state. However Spanish is widely spoken throughout the state. In some parts of South Florida, Spanish is the preferred laguage in everyday activites. The people of the Florida Panhandle, North Florida, and The Everglades and Lake Okeechobee region will usually speak in a southern accent. One will also come across a speaker of the southern dialect in rural parts of Central Florida.

Florida Travel Guide - Getting There

All of the state's major cities have airports. If you're seeking to go to the main tourist destinations like Orlando and Miami, plenty of flights will be available for reasonable rates, especially if you connect through Atlanta.

If you're looking to drive in, the three main interstate highways are I-95, I-75, and I-10 if you're coming from the Northeast, Midwest, and West/Southwest respectively.

Florida Travel Guide - Getting Around

Florida's major interstate highways include I-95, which runs north to south along the east coast, I-10, which runs from Jacksonville in the east across the panhandle to the west, and I-75, which enters the state from Georgia and runs south through Tampa and along the Gulf coast. U.S. Highway 1 is a historic and scenic highway which originates in Key West and continues up the east coast. This Florida Map site includes a detailed road map of the state, showing interstate, federal, and state highways.

Florida Travel Guide - Stay Safe

Florida has a high occurrence of hurricanes. You might want to check the Hurricane safety page if you are visiting Florida. Beware of lightning in the north central part of the state, especially Dixie County, the state's lightning capital. Volusia County is known for a high number of shark attacks, so be careful when surfing. Also, there is a high occurrence of tornados in Florida, so check the Tornado safety page.

Florida Travel Guide - Transportation

Highways

Florida's interstates, state highways and U.S. Highways are maintained by the Florida Department of Transportation.

Florida's interstate highway system contains 1,473 miles (2,371 km) of highway, and there are 9,934 miles (15,987 km) of non-interstate highway in the state, such as Florida state highways and U.S. Highways.

Florida's primary interstate routes include:

* I-4, which bisects the state, connecting Tampa, Lakeland, Orlando, and Daytona Beach, having junctions with I-95 at Daytona Beach and I-75 at Tampa.
* I-10, which traverses the panhandle, connecting Jacksonville, Lake City, Tallahassee and Pensacola, having junctions with I-95 at Jacksonville and I-75 at Lake City.
* I-75, which enters the state near Lake City (45 miles west of Jacksonville) and continues southward through Gainesville, Ocala, Tampa's eastern suburbs, Bradenton, Sarasota, and Fort Myers to Naples, where it crosses the "Alligator Alley" as a toll road to Fort Lauderdale before turning southward and terminating in Hialeah/Miami Lakes having junctions with I-10 at Lake City and I-4 at Tampa.
* I-95, which enters the state near Jacksonville and continues along the Atlantic Coast through Daytona Beach, Melbourne/Titusville, Palm Bay, Vero Beach, Fort Pierce, Port Saint Lucie, Stuart, West Palm Beach, and Ft. Lauderdale before terminating in Miami, having junctions with I-10 at Jacksonville and I-4 at Daytona Beach.

Florida's secondary interstate routes include:

* I-110, a spur from I-10 into downtown Pensacola.
* I-175, which connects I-275 to southern downtown St. Petersburg.
* I-195, an extension of Miami's Airport Expressway (S.R. 112); a spur eastward from I-95 to Miami Beach.
* I-275, a sixty-mile (100 km)[15] westward loop from I-75 north of Ellenton, over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, through St. Petersburg, to Tampa International Airport and downtown Tampa, reconnecting with I-75 in Tampa's northern suburbs.
* I-295, a partial beltway around Jacksonville that will loop completely around the city by 2007.
* I-375, which connects I-275 to northern downtown St. Petersburg.
* I-395, an extension of Miami's Dolphin Expressway (S.R. 836); a spur eastward from I-95 to Miami Beach.
* I-595, which connects I-75, I-95, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Port Everglades.

Florida has several toll roads, totaling 515 miles (830 km) of the state highway system. Major toll roads include:

* I-75, as it passes through the Everglades between Naples and Fort Lauderdale has been grandfathered as a toll road from its original construction as S.R. 84
* Florida's Turnpike, which begins at Interstate 75 south of Ocala and continues southeast through Orlando, Port Saint Lucie, and south through the western suburbs of Fort Lauderdale and Miami to Homestead

For more information about the myriad secondary toll expressways in Florida, see articles detailing roads maintained by the Florida Turnpike Authority, the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, and the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority.

Intercity Rail

In 2000, voters approved a constitutional amendment to construct a high-speed rail system to interconnect Florida's major cities. A committee was formed by the Florida Legislature to oversee the project; however, in 2004, Governor Jeb Bush and other lawmakers pushed for an amendment to remove the amendment, which succeeded. They stated that the cost would have been too high to construct the system, but proponents of the system said the claims regarding high cost were exaggerated and taken out of context, compared with the cost of building roads, maintaining automobiles, and so forth. The Florida High Speed Rail Authority, originally formed to implement the high-speed-rail amendment, has vowed to find a way to implement the system without the amendment.

Amtrak service exists in Florida: Sanford, in Greater Orlando, is the southern terminus of the Amtrak Auto Train, which originates at Lorton, Virginia, south of Washington, DC. Orlando is also the eastern terminus of the Sunset Limited, which travels across the southern United States via New Orleans, Houston, and San Antonio to its western terminus of Los Angeles. Florida is served by two additional Amtrak trains (the Silver Star and the Silver Meteor), which operate between New York City and Miami.

Public Transportation

Public transportation systems exist in many major cities. Miami has an automated guideway people-mover system, as well as a 22-mile metro system, and most cities have bus service. In the South Florida Metropolitan area, train service is provided by Tri-Rail; this service has a southern terminus in Miami and a northern terminus in West Palm Beach. It has been proposed that the northern terminus be extended north as far as Stuart in Martin County, but no progress has been made. Tri-Rail provides local bus service from its stations.

Greyhound provides commercial bus service between different cities in Florida.

Airports

Florida's major international airports, which processed more than 15 million passengers in 2005, are Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (22,390,285), Miami International Airport (31,008,453), Orlando International Airport (34,128,048) and Tampa International Airport (19,045,390).

Secondary airports, with annual passenger traffic exceeding 5 million in 2005, include Jacksonville International Airport (5,741,652), Palm Beach International Airport (West Palm Beach) (7,014,237) and Southwest Florida International Airport (Fort Myers) (7,518,169).

Other smaller, regional airports with commercial service (with passengers served in 2005, where available) include those at Daytona Beach (615,841), Fort Walton Beach, Gainesville (345,788), Key West, Melbourne (466,367) ,Naples, Panama City (382,551), Pensacola (1,638,605), Sarasota-Bradenton (1,337,571), St. Petersburg-Clearwater (596,510) and Tallahassee (1,129,947). Sanford (1,649,237) is primarily served by international charter airlines.

Florida Travel Guide - Metropolitan Areas

Florida has nineteen Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Thirty-eight of Florida's sixty-seven counties are in an MSA. Reflecting the distribution of population in Florida, Metropolitan areas in the state are concentrated around the coast of the peninsula. They form a continuous band on the east coast of Florida, stretching from the Jacksonville MSA to the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach MSA, including nearly every county on the east coast, with the exceptions of Flagler County and Monroe County. There is also a continuous band of MSAs on the west coast of the peninsula from the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA to the Naples-Marco Island MSA, including all of the coastal counties from Hernando County to Collier County. The interior of the northern half of the peninsula also has several MSAs, connecting the east and west coast MSAs. A few MSAs are scattered across the Florida panhandle.

Florida Travel Guide - Important Cities and Towns

Florida Travel Guide - Professional Sports Teams

Although Florida is the traditional home to Major League Baseball's spring training, and nearly 2/3 of all MLB teams still have a spring training presence in the state, Florida did not have a permanent major-league-level professional sports team until the American Football League added the Miami Dolphins in 1966. The state now has three NFL teams, two MLB teams, two NBA teams, and two NHL teams. With two of its most historically-important teams, Florida is one of the most important markets for the Arena Football League. Florida also hosts a variety of minor league baseball, football, basketball, ice hockey, soccer and indoor football teams.

Club - Sport - League
Jacksonville Jaguars - Football - NFL
Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Football - NFL
Miami Dolphins - Football - NFL
Orlando Magic - Basketball - NBA
Miami Heat - Basketball - NBA
Tampa Bay Lightning - Ice hockey - NHL
Florida Panthers - Ice hockey - NHL
Tampa Bay Devil Rays - Baseball - MLB
Florida Marlins - Baseball - MLB
Orlando Predators - Arena football - AFL
Tampa Bay Storm - Arena football - AFL
Brevard County Manatees - Baseball - Minors

Auto-racing tracks

* Daytona International Speedway
* Homestead-Miami Speedway
* Sebring Raceway
* St. Petersburg Raceway

Article Source: Wikipedia