Looking For "Old" Florida
 

We will be in the southwestern part of the state, from Tampa to Naples, next week. We are looking for thing where we can experience the "old" Florida, the things that are a bit more natural and a bit less commercialized. I have been looking into Myakka River State Park, Snook Haven, J. Ding Darling, and Cypress Swamp. Any recommendations on any of these or suggestions on any place else?

Ding Darling is very interesting but it is on Sanibel and so you wouldn't call it old Florida although the wildlife especially birding is good. Corkscrew Swamp is run by the Audubon Soc and last time I was there had a raised platform that wound through a cypres swamp and was very natural.

Everglade City: the Rod & Gun Club (not what it sounds like) - go for lunch or a drink on the back porch. There's also a place to get stone crab claws that's on the first right ( Dupont Street) after you take the turn to go down to Everglade City. It's the 2nd bldg on the left. Looks pretty gritty but absolutely fantastic stone crab, about $12/lb plus $1/lb to have them crack the claws for you. Take a dish out back and sit at the counter by the side of the canal and watch the boats go by. Divine!
Both are about half an hour from Marco Island.

I suggest Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples (http://www.corkscrew.audubon.org) and the Edison & Ford estates in Fort Meyer (http://www.efwefla.org).

Check out Koreshan State Historic Site in the Fort Myers area.

Amen to gailw's suggestion of Everglades City and _both_ places to eat. Also visit the local museum to learn more about the history of this fascinating place, where at one time the entire adult male population was suspected of drug running and many went to jail. It's covered in the displays.

Continue on to Chokoluskee which may be even more Old Florida. You can take an Everglades boat ride into the edge of the 10,000 islands, and you absolutely should go to the General Store, now a museum, also with an interesting criminal history: a group of vigilantes gunned down a truly evil man here, a farmer who held his workers in slavery and was reputed to kill them when he was supposed to pay them!

Further up the Gulf Coast, I think much of downtown Venice has not lost its charm. I grew up partly in Florida in the 1950's, and Venice has more of that feel than almost anywhere else I have been in recent years.

If you are lucky enough to find a bar with smoked mullet, eat some with a cold beer and you will be going back a generation.

Big Cypress National Preserve, check the "view map" and drive the Loop Road, visit Shark Valley.

http://www.nps.gov/bicy/

Shark Valley, Everglades National Park.

http://www.nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/svdirections.htm

Both are easy to access from SW Florida.

If you ever get down to the Keys visit Alabama Jack's.

http://www.alabamajacks.com/

Would you consider Gasparilla Island? http://www.floridastateparks.org/gas...nd/default.cfm