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Orlando - Off The Beaten Path: Discovering Central Florida Without Visiting Any Theme Parks... Can It Be Done?

One of my husband's favourite places isGolf Links we enjoyed a wonderful picnic by
Florida, since he is an avid golfer and likesthe waterfront in sunny downtown Kissimmee.
to get away from the cold Canadian winter forThen, on a beautiful Sunday morning we drove
his  birthday  in  early  December.about an hour outside of Orlando to reach the
quaint town of Mt. Dora, where I hopped on
For a while now we had planned to visitthe "Herbie Express", part of the Mt. Dora -
Orlando, but neither one of us are into themeLake  Eustis  Scenic  Railway.
parks. So there was the challenge for me:
would we be able to visit Orlando withoutFrom midweek in the second week onwards the
setting foot into Disney or Universalweather took a turn for the worse. While
Studios? For someone as curious as me thisplanes were sliding off runways in Chicago
was a suitable challenge and I had been doingand record temperatures were registered in
weeks of searches on the Internet andthe mid-western states, we were freezing in
communicating with the Orlando Convention andFlorida where the mercury hovered around 68
Visitors Bureau to find out about interestingto 70 degrees Fahrenheit (around +20 degrees
destinations  off  the  beaten  path.Celsius). So I bought a rain jacket, and
determined not to let the freezing cold
Well, I am happy to say, we arrived backinterfere with our plans, we headed out to
safely yesterday from our trip, and the tripcontinue  our  explorations.
itself was quite an adventure since we
decided to drive from Toronto to Orlando,On a day that was forecast to be rainy, but
about 2100 km each way! Actually, the drivejust ended up being a bit grey and clammy, we
was not as painful as I expected. The drivewent out to discover Loch Haven Park,
through Pennsylvania and West Virginia wasOrlando's center of science, art and culture.
nice and hilly, and I particularly enjoyedWe then continued our explorations further
coming over the ridge of the Appalachians,south to discover some of Orlando's historic
right where Virginia and North Carolina meet,neighbourhoods and parks such as Lake
where you get a beautiful view of theCherokee  and  Lake  Lucerne.
piedmont area around Winston-Salem that
spreads out towards the Atlantic in front ofAs the drizzly weather continued, we went on
the  mountain  chain.to visit Florida's Natural Visitor Center in
Lake Wales, about an hours drive south of
And I am even happier to say that in the 14Orlando, where I got a really good
or so days that we spent in Orlando, not onlyunderstanding of Central Florida's citrus
did we get to play a lot of golf (to make myindustry. I spent the afternoon in another
husband really happy...;) - including Mysticfamous attraction in Lake Wales which holds
Dunes, Champions Gate, Royal St. Cloud Links,two National Historic Landmarks: the Historic
Hawk's Landing and Timacuan Golf and CountryBok Sanctuary, where I got to see the beauty
Club, not to mention the Walking Hall of Fameof the Bok estate and its historic carillon
experience of the PGA Father Son Challenge attower, combined with a tour through the
Champions Gate, but I also got to explorehistoric Pinewood Estate, which was decked
some really interesting places, destinationsout  in  full  Christmas  decorations.
I would not have expected in Orlando and its
surrounding region. I also had a chance to doDuring these 2 weeks in Florida, we got
an interview with GolfOrlando to get a muchexposed to a lot of its plants, flowers and
better idea of why Orlando is called "Thewildlife, much of which you run into casually
Ultimate  Golf  Theme  Park".even while playing golf or picknicking by the
waterfront. Florida has a surprising amount
We started off our first week with a visit toof natural diversity and I enjoyed watching
the Orange Country Regional History Center,the various types of birds, lizards, and
which gave us a suitable historic backgroundsquirrels. The only thing we didn't get to
of Orlando and Central Florida. Then, forsee was a live alligator (with the exception
some sociological and cultural insights, weof the well-hidden rear end of a small
visited the Well's Built Museum for Africanalligator during our swamp buggy tour -
American History and Culture in Orlando. Tounfortunately I couldn't even get a good
top off our first day of exploration wepicture of that one..). Apparently winter
enjoyed a walk around picturesque Lake Eolatime is too cold for these creatures to come
in  downtown  Orlando.out  of  the  water...
The next item on my off-the-beaten pathOn our drive home, on a bright sunny day (of
agenda was a discovery of the City of Wintercourse...), we stopped off in St. Augustine,
Park, a beautiful suburb of Orlando,a historic town founded by the Spaniards in
reminiscent of Old European towns. I alsothe 1500s, and the oldest continuously
went on the Winter Park Scenic Boat Tour,inhabited town in the United States - a
which was an entertaining, informative andmighty  photogenic  place,  I  should  add.
visually  appealing  excursion.
So, you ask, is it possible to spend 2 weeks
The adrenaline revved up significantly on ourin Orlando without even setting foot inside a
next outing: a very high-speed airboat ridetheme park and still have a good time? Well,
at Boggy Creek, that was followed up by abased on the above itinerary I'd say that my
much lower speed swamp buggy ride in aplans to explore Orlando off the beaten path
custom-built monster truck that took uscame  to  full  fruition.
through  authentic  Florida  landscape.
Mission accomplished.
After our golf outing at the Royal St. Cloud



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