Getting to Florida

Getting to Florida as an independent traveller is very easy and comparatively cheap. Both Virgin Atlantic and BA fly daily from Gatwick to Orlando and also from Heathrow (BA) and Gatwick (Virgin) to Miami. Summertime charter flights are also available from some UK regional airports.

We chose to jet into Miami rather than Orlando (it's generally cheaper, for one thing) and picked up a hire car for the five hour jaunt to the middle of the state. It was a fascinating journey, allowing us the chance to marvel not only at the vastness of the countryside but also the abundant wildlife. Where else would your picnic site abut an alligator swamp?

Driving and car hire in Florida

The driving is easy and unhurried and, with gas cheaper than in the UK, every mile covered brings a smile to the British driver's lips. Car rental is reasonably low priced, but make sure you get a written quote from the hirer; we found our supposedly inclusive rate didn't cover the vital damage waiver and liability insurances, even though our travel agent had assured us it did. Judging by the fixed expression and off-pat demand for extra cash from the car company's rep, this is a common misunderstanding. She'd heard our protestations a thousand times before and wasn't going to budge.

A Florida holiday itinerary

A week's villa hire in the Orlando/ Kissimmee area as part of a fortnight's holiday seems just about the ideal balance. Fly into Orlando, stay and do the parks, then meander southwards for a Miami flight home. There's an enormous amount to see along the way, like the fabulous west coast and its seaside cities Tampa, St Petersburg, Sarasota and Naples.

We dropped in on the delightful Sanibel island, reached from a causeway from Fort Myers Beach, where you can find miles of sandy, shell-encrusted beaches and some charming restaurants. Given America's carbonised culture, it was a shock to find so many tourists abandoning their automobiles and hiring bicycles to tour the island. There are plenty of attractive villas for hire here, so you could easily arrange a two-centre holiday and have a week to recover from the theme parks.

The east coast of Florida has abundant attractions also. Like the speedster's paradise of Daytona Beach, and Cape Canaveral with its nature reserve and the Kennedy Space Center, where you can visit the moonshot and Shuttle launch areas and get a real, chilling feel for the bravery shown by the astronauts.

Further south is Miami itself, with its distinctive Latin feel, fabulous beaches and racy atmosphere. And between the coasts there’s the Everglades National Park; hundreds of miles of unreclaimed swamp, home to a myriad of threatened wildlife such as the manatee and bald eagle. And plenty of alligators, too.

In short, there are enough diversions in Florida to fill a lifetime of holidays – and nowhere in the world does the over-used holiday marketing phrase 'something for everyone' apply so wholeheartedly.