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Heading to South Florida with Robin and Zumette. Looking at probably splitting the trip into a Sanibel/fort Myers segment and a Miami/Key Largo segment.
Anyone have recommended caches in Sanibel, Fort Myers, Naples, Everglades, Homestead, Miami or the Keys?
thanks
zuma
😉Never cached there, but I’m ready to go back! 8)
This is one I visited before I started caching, but I would highly recommend it. Virtual Cache GC919C and Benchmark AG1232 will not disappoint. I even have a geocoin with the location on it (see pic in my profile if you wish). I spent the first day of my honeymoon at this location. I hope you have time to visit it.
Can you tell I want to go back?
We drove from Key Largo to Key West on US1 and had a lot of fun just stopping for caches along the way. If you get as far as Key West, we recommend GCA61D “Trails of Margaritaville” and GCA5B4 “Magic of the Music”. We’ve cached around Key West a couple of times and had a blast!
@Braid Beard’s Gang wrote:
This is one I visited before I started caching, but I would highly recommend it. Virtual Cache GC919C and Benchmark AG1232 will not disappoint. I even have a geocoin with the location on it (see pic in my profile if you wish). I spent the first day of my honeymoon at this location. I hope you have time to visit it.
Can you tell I want to go back?
The virt is a definate one to get, and already on my “to do” list that I am building….Kind of a funny virt, since they only want the color of the object, and every tourist site has a pic of it featured. Easy enough even for the Germans to grab.
We are planning on spending some time on the beach near here, so this one is for sure.
z
@Captain and Mate wrote:
We drove from Key Largo to Key West on US1 and had a lot of fun just stopping for caches along the way. If you get as far as Key West, we recommend GCA61D “Trails of Margaritaville” and GCA5B4 “Magic of the Music”. We’ve cached around Key West a couple of times and had a blast!
About a 2 hour drive, assuming no stops? Of course we would stop.
I have been to Key West and Key Largo in the past, pre-caching, so was thinking of driving as far south as Marathon Key, also because Key West is so crowded I am not in a rush to go back. I am guessing the Keys in the middle are less crowded?
z
Yep-avoiding KW if you’re not a fan of crowds is the way to go. EC GC19PFH was one we enjoyed and it’s not that far from Key Largo.
Keep those suggestions coming. The family and I will be headed that way for Spring Break. We are staying in Marathon so we can hit both ends. We are also looking for snorkeling sites accessible from the beach.
When Mrs. Northwoods visited her mom in Naples, Florida last winter, she asked me to find her a few caches to take her on.
“My” first choice was a multi: “Pittsburgh Transplant Trail 2” (GCHVGR), 11+ miles. My mother in law is spry, but not that spry for her age. So they chose “A Swamp Thing”, (GCHO7O). Cache was weak but the “Corkscrew Sanctuary” was wonderful.
Here are some of my favorites in the upper keys. I would be able to add to the list, but the last few years we’ve been benchmark hunting
Islamorada GC19PFH Backbone of the Keys (Earthcache). It is a state park that was close to being closed due to lack of funding and interest. But the geologic wonders and the history makes this a worthwhile stop. Plus there are two other traditional caches located here!
Islamorada GCP4E3 Storm of the Century A great memorial to the devestating hurricane of 1935. (Ties in nicely with the the above mentioned earthcache).
Marathon GC156V7 Coco Janis Sand Beach A remote out of the way beach best known to the locals. The beach is great and not crowded like many others! One of favorites!
There are a few others that were worthy, but are now archived. (Blue Hole comes to mind) – but still might be worth a visit if its open as the place is cool foe what it is and what it has to offer!
@astrod-team wrote:
Here are some of my favorites in the upper keys. I would be able to add to the list, but the last few years we’ve been benchmark hunting
Islamorada GC19PFH Backbone of the Keys (Earthcache). It is a state park that was close to being closed due to lack of funding and interest. But the geologic wonders and the history makes this a worthwhile stop. Plus there are two other traditional caches located here!
Islamorada GCP4E3 Storm of the Century A great memorial to the devestating hurricane of 1935. (Ties in nicely with the the above mentioned earthcache).
We did both of these and concur with the recommendation. We did notice the park where the earthcache is located is now only open weekends, perhaps due to funding problems.
We were on the Keys for a class at BSA Sea Base in Jan 2009 and agree with the 3 suggestions by Astro D. We had a free day and drove down to Key West doing some caches that interested us along the way. I was going to suggest No Name Key GCBD18 and Ramrod GC19GWY short multis but they have been archived. Layton Trail Triple GCMEVZ is still active and is a multi on a small trail through a hardwood hammock in the tiny town of Layton. One to do just for the fun of the object is If You Build It—They Will Come NOT GCMYYY.
We vacationed in Sanibel a couple of years ago, shortly after we started caching. We saw alot of the local habitat doing two earthcaches there, GCNPMD and GCZTK0. We were startled by a sign warning of “Alligator Habitat” on the trail while doing GC1HX5Y and GC1JMVJ. There is a virtual GC919C, a traditional GC316F, and a benchmark AG1232 at the lighthouse at the east end of Sanibel. There is another virtual at a neat little cemetary GCD6EE, and a great place to watch the sunset at the west end of Captiva, a very short walk from a parking lot micro GC18HFB.
Across the bridge in Fort Myers Beach there is a webcam GCJJ9Q.
If you’re taking Alligator Alley to the east coast, there is an earthcache at a rest stop GC10XMW. I learned a lot about the formation of south Florida there.
And of course, the puzzle series that I reccommend to everyone going to Florida GCYXN0, in Fort Lauderdale.
I haven’t cached in that area in quite a while, but these are the ones I remember fondly.
Thanks for all the great suggestions! We are back, and I want to add to the list of recommended caches in south Florida. (BTW, it looks like a lot of WI people cache in south Florida–some of the caches we found, we were signing under Nature Nutz of Chippewa Falls, Da Bloodhound of Menomononie, and Team Smith Lake of Hayward.)
Anyway, I took the recommendations from this thread, and also looked at caches that had been favorited by more than 3 people, and made a list of “to do” caches, and in that way got a higher percentage of interesting caches, than you probably would just by random.
Here are the ones I liked:
Fort Meyers/Sanibel area
GCC195 Manatee Island – A virtual cache where we saw lots of manatees in the wild.
GC3CE Matanzas cache – 5th oldest cache in the state, 1/4 mile walk on a boardwalk nature preserve of mangrove, near the Fort Meyers Beach.
GC919C Show Me The Way – Lighthouse virtual, with a physical cache co-located on a great section of Sanibel Beach.
GCJ5M4 Hop To It – A small physical cache on Bowman’s Beach. All of Sanibel is beautiful, but Bowman’s Beach, and the South tip of the island are fantastic. Tons of shells and we saw dolphins playing very close to the beach here.
GCZTK0 The Sanibel River – a half mile walk in a nature preserve, that is quite a contrast to the nearby beaches. Great Earthcache.
GC25KBG WherIGo in Lakes Park – A very well done WIG, in a beautiful park. I did this one solo at the crack of dawn and was amazed at the number of birds here. Awesome place.
GCY7K2 Million Dollar Goat Farm – A simple PNG on the edge of a very large urban goat farm.
GC1N8HK I’m In The Union – A very well done urban hide, with a great view to boot.
Naples area:
GC1PB6K Thick as a brick – Boring urban location, but a super well done hide.
GC1B0XF The Naples Preserve -Small but interesting nature preserve in an urban area. We saw the endangered gopher turtle, and Black Racers. This is also the site of one of the old APE caches, now gone, but there is a Son of APE cache up a tree 30 feet we were unable to get (until Lauryn gets to be a better climber.)
Everglades:
GCFA Christmas Cache – Florida’s oldest cache, out on a hiking trail in the Glades. I saw eagles and deer. Supposedly, there are panthers, bears and gators there too, though I did not see them.
GC910E The Sky Is Crying – A physical cache near a moving memorial to the victims of a plane crash.
GC1ZKX6 Gallery of Cypress – A PNG, that is on the edge of the glades with a wonderful view of the plants and the many birds here.
Fort Lauderdale:
GC1CDHY Cannonball Run Cache – A ammo can right on the beach, at the life guard station.
GC1HMVG TB Trader or Call the Cable Guy – Urban TB Hotel.
(Overall, Ft Lauderdale was the only area that we visited that I did not care for. Way to urban with tons of traffic, so we did not explore the area much. And I totally drove around Miami, avoiding the crowds there.)
The Keys:
GC2AY4B John Pennekamp State Park – A nice EC in a great park. Third largest coral reef in the world, and you can snorkle (Robin did) right at the EC and see coral, fish and Spanish wreck artifacts. The park also does snorkle and glass bottom boat tours from here. There is also a nearby physical cache nearby that is quite fun.
GCMQJX Hungry Tarpon – A PNG with a view.
GC19PFH Backbone of the Keys – A unique Earthcache about mining of coral in the Keys. This park may soon be shut down by Florida’s new Governor, so the EC may not last much longer. There is also a colocated physical cache that is fun.
GC156V7 Coco Janis Sand Cache – A nice walk along a great beach in the Keys. Beaches in the Keys dont often have sand, but they truck it in here, so the beach is very nice.
I am sure there are a lot of other great caches in south Florida, so I dont mean my list to be comprehensive. Those are just the ones that we were able to get to while down there.
I also tried out the Power Trail near Fort Lauderdale, the “Grim” trail. See
GC2M6YC as an example. There are several hundred of these in a straight line on a guard rail along a busy road. Looks great on the map, so I had to try it. What I found was the most unpleasant series of caches that I have yet run into. Very limited safe parking along a busy road, so I tried walking, and the road noise was not pleasant. Combine that with copious spider webs in the guardrails, and found the whole thing not to be my cup of tea. But to each their own.In short, Sanibel, Naples, the Everglades and Keys are great to cache in. We sampled Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach a bit, but the Atlantic Coast is very overbuilt and overpopulated and not nearly as nice as the Gulf Coast.
zuma
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