Economical SW Florida vacation possible?
I have never been to Florida nor on any real vacations in my adult life. I would like to see the nature and creatures of SW Florida. I can fly there, but, if one does not have a credit card car rental is not an option…can someone recommend ways to get around inexpensively? Also if I am not into the high grade condo vacation but i don’t want to stay in a cheezy hotel, any ideas to be nice and economical?
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Tagged with: adult life • car rental • creatures • credit card • fly • sw florida • Vacations
Filed under: Vacation condos
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It’ll be tough to pull anything off in SW FL without a car. Public transit systems are virtually non-existent and certainly don’t cover the overall area.
Some rentals don’t require a credit card. A debit card will do. Check out the story…
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/paying-for-rental-car-with-debit-card-1276.php
http://www.dollar.com/Car_Rental_Information/Main/Renting_a_Car_without_a_Credit_Card.aspx
Now that we’ve hopefully eliminated that little inconvenience, prices are rather high for motels in SW FL. Call it the additional fee for visiting "paradise". But when I want to visit a new area, I check it out with Yahoo Maps, with an additional search in maps for "motels". Then I check out the motels website from the link within Yahoo maps. Then I go to http://www.tripadvisor.com/ and check out some reviews for that motel, always allowing for one or two bad reviews. If I’m interested in a motel, I’ll call the 800 number and ask about special rates. With the economy running low, some of those folks are desperate for customers. It always works well for me.
Summers are very intense in South Florida. The humidity runs high from June to October, tropical showers abound, and the suns radiation is so strong that it feels like someone’s holding a lit match next to your skin. Any other time of year is excellent for a visit. I’d do a visit in December, just after the rainy season has ended and the water levels are still high. It’s just before our winter season begins and the tourists come pouring in.
As for our creatures and nature, yeah, you’ll be right next to Everglades National Park and the Corkscrew Sanctuary with their great nature trails. There’s some hefty-sized critters hiding out there. Some of our lizards are the size of iguanas. Wait. They are iguanas! And at the right time of the year, check out our 4 inch yellow grasshoppers. Whoa.
Nature around here is hard to beat. Even after all these years living in South Florida, the variety and tropical feel of the palm trees still blows me away. And all those houseplants that can’t live out of pots in the cold north…they grow wild around here…especially the delicate ferns. Everything is always green and lush, even in January. Then there’s the beaches of SW FL. Beautiful sand, lots of seashells, and bluish warm water. Get out onto the piers and you’ll probably see a few dolphin or manta rays swimming by.
It’s all just crazy. That’s why we see visitors walking around looking kinda’ like pelicans, with their jaws hanging down in awe. It’s good ‘ol Florida.