Florida
Florida arrives with a reputation already written for it — beaches, theme parks, humidity, and headlines. Then it starts surprising you.
The air smells of salt and jasmine. Water glints through the trees at every turn — rivers, springs, lakes, marshes stretching toward the horizon. Everything feels impossibly green. An alligator slips beneath the surface. A pelican drifts overhead.
And then there are the beaches: sugar-white sand, water shifting from emerald to turquoise, the Gulf glowing in the late afternoon light.
The Florida everyone expects is easy to find. The one that keeps pulling us back takes a little longer.
This is our collection of Florida — the places, the surprises, and the stories in between.
Florida
Somewhere Neither of Us Has Been — St. Augustine, Florida
Florida, in my mind, meant beaches, theme parks, and strip malls. It did not mean what we found when we turned onto the old streets of St. Augustine. It felt like stepping out of our own time.