Page 94 - 2024-2025 Travel Guide to Florida

DOG WALKER IN PANAMA CITY BEACH • VISIT PANAMA CITY BEACH
INSIDER TIPS
If you’re bringing Fido with you, St. George Island and Alligator Point in Franklin County have pet-friendly beaches, as does Panama City Beach.
Take the road less traveled in Jackson County, where wildlife, farms, rolling hills, wooded areas, streams and canopy trees line nearly 800 miles of unpaved roads.
In Panama City, Bay Town Trolley offers convenient public transportation and has multiple stops throughout the city (baytowntrolley.org).
NORTHWEST FLORIDA
ARTS AND CULTURE
In Franklin County, easternmost in the Northwest Florida region, Apalachicola is the best-known city. Once the third-largest port on the Gulf of Mexico, reminders of those halcyon days of steamers and schooners, railroads and lumber mills remain. The city’s historic district has nearly a thousand buildings and sites from a bygone era. Along the waterfront, structures that once served as commercial fishing factories and warehouses have evolved into seafood houses and galleries, and old shrimp boats now reside for eternity.
Nearby, Cape St. George Lighthouse had been lighting the way for mariners since 1852, until it collapsed in 2005. It was rebuilt with a new museum but is no longer a working lighthouse (blame GPS), but you can’t tell the story of this region without relating the history of this structure.
Panama City has four very interesting neighborhoods in which to roam. Downtown is filled with galleries and arts facilities such as the Martin Theatre at the Majestic Beach Resort, the Center for the Arts and the CityArts Cooperative. Historic St. Andrews still resembles the quaint fishing village it was in the “old days.” Downtown North serves as the cultural hub of Panama City’s African- American community and Millville is named for its once-thriving paper manufacturing and shipbuilding industries.
STREET MURALISTS, PENSACOLA FOO FOO FESTIVAL • FOO FOO FESTIVAL/ANNE OUSEY
Holmes County has a population of only about 20,000, however, it boasts one noteworthy historical residence. The Keith Cabin is an authentic 19th-century rural homestead on which William Thomas Keith grew cotton and tobacco and expanded his land holdings from 10 acres to 190. You can access a very mystical and historical spot in this county along the Choctawhatchee River where there are at least a dozen Indian burial grounds in Holmes County. Or head to Sand Hammock
Lake near Esto where the story of a giant alligator named Two-Toed Tom is legendary. The monstrous beast has been compared to the “Loch Ness Monster” in Scotland. Sightings are rare but the mystery lives on!
South Walton is home to a vibrant arts community, anchored by the local Cultural Arts Alliance, and enhanced by the Foster Gallery. Artists at Gulf Place is an art cooper- ative including potters, sculptors, painters, jewelers and photographers, with workshops for kids. South Walton also boasts The Repertory Theatre in Seaside, one of Northwest Florida’s premier professional theater companies.
At the Indian Temple Mound Museum in Fort Walton Beach, you can walk through 12,000 years of Native American life and admire one of the finest collections of prehistoric ceramics in the southeastern U.S. A short drive north of Fort Walton Beach, a more recent period of history comes alive at the Air Force Armament Museum, which takes you from the early biplanes of World War I to the SR-71 Blackbird, once the world’s fastest aircraft ever built. If Broadway shows and the Northwest Florida Symphony pique your interest, check the schedule at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center.
In the town of Milton, which is the acclaimed “Canoe Capital of Florida,” discover historical homes and storefronts
92 2024-25 TRAVEL GUIDE TO FLORIDA