Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
La Florida for Spain. Supposedly, he was hunting for the mythical fountain of youth (the
peninsula's crystal springs), while later Spanish explorers like Hernando de Soto sought
gold. All came up empty handed.
Within two centuries, Florida's original native inhabitants - who formed small tribes
across a peninsula they'd occupied for over 11,000 years - were largely decimated by
Spanish-introduced diseases. Today's Seminoles are the descendents of native groups
who moved into the territory and intermingled in the 1700s.
Through the 18th century, Spain and England played hot potato with Florida as they
struggled to dominate the New World, finally tossing the state to America, who admitted
it to the Union in 1845. Meanwhile, developers and speculators were working hard to
turn the swampy peninsula into a vacation and agricultural paradise. By the turn of the
20th century, railroad tycoons like Henry Flagler had unlocked Florida's coastlines,
while a frenzy of canal-building drained the wetlands. The rush was on, and in the 1920s
the South Florida land boom transformed Miami from sandbar to metropolis in 10 years.
Things went bust with the Great Depression, which set the pattern: Florida has ever
since swung between intoxicating highs and brutal lows, riding the vicissitudes of im-
migration, tourism, hurricanes and real estate speculation (not to mention a thriving black
market).
Following Castro's Cuban revolution in the 1960s, Cuban exiles flooded Miami, and
each successive decade has seen the ranks of Latin immigrants grow and diversify. As
for tourism, it was never the same after 1971, when Walt Disney built his Magic King-
dom, embodying the vision of eternal youth and perfected fantasy that Florida has pack-
aged and sold since the beginning.
Local Culture
Florida is one of the USA's most diverse states. Broadly speaking, northern Florida re-
flects the culture of America's South, while southern Florida has welcomed so many
Cuban, Caribbean, and Central and South American immigrants, it's been dubbed 'the
Capital of Latin America.' As such, there is no 'typical Floridian,' and about the only
thing that unifies state residents is that the great majority are transplants from someplace
else. While this has led to its share of conflicts, tolerance is more often the rule. Most
Floridians are left to carve their own self-defined communities, be they gays, retirees,
Cubans, Haitians, bikers, evangelicals, Nascar-loving good old boys or globetrotting art-
world sophisticates.
Getting There & Around
