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The Jacksonville Beach Pier is close to a quarter mile long. -STEPHANIE DAVIS \/ FLORIDA WEEKLY<\/p>\n
I love downtown Fort Myers \u2013 but the truth is, I love almost all downtowns \u2013 especially in the state of Florida.\n<\/p>\n
I remember when my family and I moved to Southwest Florida and settled on Fort Myers Beach when I was still in grade school in the mid-1970s (I love telling younger people that I\u2019m from the 1900s). When we arrived from Ohio, the landscape was a bit of a shock. Where were the trees? Where were the old-timey historic buildings? Where were the seasons? And, most importantly, what were these giant, disgusting, winged monsters that folks called \u201cpalmetto bugs\u201d? It wasn\u2019t until I moved downtown when I was in my 30s that I truly started appreciating my new hometown. The history I craved was, of course, in the historic district. It was there that I could check out buildings that were more than 100 years old and see enormous, romantic banyan trees. I\u2019d have to live without seasons \u2013 and while I still love visiting our beaches on a regular basis, downtown is more my jam.\n<\/p>\n
A long drive up the state<\/p>\n
So, when my husband and I travel, like we did the second week of 2026 to visit family in Jacksonville, I tend to drive Todd nuts by insisting that we take the \u201clong way\u201d so that we drive through all the little Florida towns (like most guys, he just wants to \u201cget there\u201d). And, of course, Jacksonville is a good five to six hours away from here, so just call it a day\u2019s drive. Florida is a ridiculously long state. In fact, if you were to drive from Key West to Pensacola, it would take you a very boring 13 hours or so (our interstates \u2013 like most \u2013 aren\u2019t exactly scenic) unless you enjoy lots of billboards telling you to go to Orlando (no thank you).\n<\/p>\n
Florida flora, fauna and fun<\/p>\n
But taking the scenic route is so much more fun. I love how when you\u2019re driving north in Florida, the amount of trees increases, and most have Spanish moss hanging from them, the homes get older, and you get to see historic cracker houses with big breezy porches and lots of flora and fauna. And you don\u2019t have to go all the way to Jacksonville. You can find all of this so much closer \u2013 like in Arcadia, Sarasota, and St. Petersburg. If you feel like venturing across or further up the state, there are super cool downtowns like Micanopy near Gainesville, filled with tons of antique and thrift stores; Mount Dora, which is a haven for folks who are into psychics and a new age vibe surrounded by charm; and Delray Beach on the east coast, known for its many art galleries and festivals.\n<\/p>\n
Beautiful beaches, charming neighborhoods <\/p>\n
This trip was centered on Jacksonville Beach, where I\u2019d never really been before, and it was darling. A very classic beachy town, but with seasons \u2013 I spotted no brave swimmers in the chilly Atlantic ocean during my mid-morning beach walks while we were there \u2013 but there were plenty of surfers catching waves in their wetsuits. We went to an enormous antique mall called Avonlea that even had a caf\u00e9 and a beer and wine bar \u2013 genius. Walking around shopping with wine in hand is known to loosen wallets \u2014 I\u2019m living proof. We loved riding our bikes (it\u2019s such a pedestrian-friendly beach) and seeing so many different styles of architecture, but mostly pastel ranch houses built in the \u201850s and \u201860s that smacked mid-century Florida. Plus, Jacksonville Beach boasts a pier that stretches out over the ocean for nearly a quarter of a mile!\n<\/p>\n
Also, here\u2019s the joy of seasons \u2013 since Northeastern Florida\u2019s tourist season is summertime, spending a week in January up there meant very little traffic, crowds, long lines, or heat and humidity. The weather was delicious, with highs in the 70s and evening lows in the 50s.\n<\/p>\n
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Stephanie Davis. -COURTESY PHOTO<\/p>\n
As always, I love encouraging folks to break out for daytrips or weekend jaunts in our lovely state to check out all the downtowns. By the way, when Todd and I were in the car, I read an article online, \u201cFlorida\u2019s Best Small Towns\u201d, and downtown Fort Myers was right there in the top 10. We have so much to discover in this state and I intend to see all there is to see.\n<\/p>\n
Stephanie Davis is a recovering girl-about-town formerly known as the Downtown Diva. A nearly native Southwest Floridian, when she\u2019s not photographing events for Florida Weekly, she\u2019s perfectly content to stay at home binging Netflix with her husband and two cats, Tennessee and Lilibet.\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jacksonville Beach Pier is close to a quarter mile long. -STEPHANIE DAVIS \/ FLORIDA WEEKLY I love…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":{"0":"post-118304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}