Florida's Panhandle Beach Towns, with Kids

This piece appeared in The Miami Herald March 27, 2011.

       The sun is be­ginning to set, and my wife, Nancy, and our three kids and I are playing in the turquoise surf and sugary sand of Deer Lake State Park on Florida’s Emerald Coast.

     We have the entire beach to our­selves. The only sounds are the waves and the wind rustling the sea oats on the dunes. The beach is pris­tine — there’s no sign of the tar balls or oth­er oil residue that washed up here last July from the Deepwa­ter Horizon oil spill.

     Our kids — Sophia, 9, Andy, 8, and Stella, 2 — are wa­ter fiends. They could spend an entire week on the beach or in a ho­tel pool and consid­er it the great­est vacation they’ve ev­er had. In fact, when we go to Or­lando, we skip Epcot and the Magic Kingdom and go straight to the wa­ter parks.

Sophia, Nancy and Stella at Deerlake State Park.

       But as fun as wa­ter vacations are, Nancy also likes to shop and eat (it’s okay for me to say that, since she weighs only 100 pounds), and I like history and na­ture. So we decided to vis­it the beach towns of the central Panhan­dle because they offered some­thing for all of us.

      Most of Florida’s Panhan­dle, from Pensacola in the west to St. Marks in the east, has brilliant white beaches and warm, rel­atively calm emerald wa­ter. But the central section, running from Santa Rosa Beach to Apalachicola, has some of the Gulf Coast’s most stunning scenery, as well as a wide va­ri­ety of          

ar­chi­tec­ture, historic sites, shopping and restaurants. The west­ern section of this route is known as the Emerald Coast, while the more rus­tic east­ern section is re­ferred to as the Forgotten Coast.

     Our goal for this trip was to give the kids their beach and pool time, but also expose them to nat­ural and cultur­al attractions that would teach them some­thing about Old Florida.

Apalachicola

     We began our adven­ture on the Forgotten Coast in Apalachicola, a fish­ing village that was once the largest port on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Be­ginning in the 1820s, steamboats came down the Apalachicola Riv­er to the port city bearing Georgia cotton, which was loaded onto ocean ves­sels and sent to New Eng­land and Eu­rope.

     We stayed at the Consulate, a boutique ho­tel that occu­pies the sec­ond floor of the re­stored Grady Building, which served as the French consulate to Florida dur­ing Apalachicola’s heyday.

Sophia on one of the non-haunted beds at the Consulate Hotel.

     “This place looks haunted!” said Sophia as we made our way up the narrow staircase that leads to the Attaché Suite. But she soon changed her mind when we opened the door and saw the bright and wel­com­ing living and kitchen area, dec­orated in a nautical theme with a mix of con­temporary fur­ni­ture and antiques. The spa­cious suite, which sleeps five, also has a large terrace overlooking a walled garden.

     The charms of Apalachicola include its working                  

wa­terfront — right across the street from the Consulate — and its historic downtown, which includes the Dixie The­ater, dozens of antiques shops and restaurants, and the Old Time Soda Fountain. The soda fountain is located in a 19th-centu­ry building that was once the city drug store, and its current décor dates to the 1950s. Andy was amazed at the va­ri­ety of ice cream sodas and exot­ic items on the menu, including sasparilla, but decided to play it safe with a root beer float.

     Af­ter their dose of Apalachicola history, the kids were      

itch­ing to get to the beach, so we drove 20 minutes to St. George Is­land State Park. One look at the beaches threw us into glucose shock, and the wa­ter was warmer than what we normally draw for the kids’ baths. The park also has good chang­ing and shower fa­cilities.

     Nancy and I love seafood, but our kids don’t, so fresh shrimp and oysters, so abun­dant in the Panhan­dle, weren’t a prior­ity on this trip. But before we left Apalachicola, Nancy in­sisted on trying the local shrimp at Tama­ra’s Café. The Creole pasta was amazing, with shrimp (straight from the boats), chicken and sausage in a spicy tomato cream sauce.

Panama City

     The next day we set off to Panama City Beach, which could not be more differ­ent — in ar­chi­tec­ture or ambiance — than Apalachicola.

    “This looks like a lit­tle Las Vegas!” said Nancy — with glee — as we drove down Front Beach Road with its high-rise ho­tels, neon signs and hordes of bathing-suit-clad pede­s­trians. Sophia was also im­pressed with this mi­ni “Strip,” but it wasn’t exactly my style.

     We compro­mised and stayed at the Marriott Bay Point Resort, located off by it­self on St. Andrews Bay across from St. Andrews State Park. The ho­tel has four pools — which my kids loved, of course — three out­doors and one indoors, in case of rain. (It did rain.)

Andy and Sophia in one of four pools at the Marriott Panama City.

     For dinner we drove 15 miles west to Rosemary Beach, where the tightly-con­trolled ar­chi­tec­ture can   best be de­scribed as Florida Dutch Colonial. Here the Panhan­dle collides with South Africa and Curacao in white-washed walls, gabled roofs and im­mac­ulately maintained landscap­ing.

   Af­ter a sunset walk along the beach, and af­ter checking out the toy store and some accessories shops along the village’s main street, we headed to Cowgirl Kitchen, which claims to be “Where Beach Meets West.” Here you’ll find specialty pizzas like “No Bull” (roast­ed garlic, fresh spinach, and three cheeses) and “Fancy Cowgirl” (portobello mush­rooms, feta cheese and truffle oil on white sauce). My kids opted for plain cheese pizza and French fries. We sat in a red vinyl booth, admiring the kitschy West­ern mem­o­ra­bil­ia on the walls.

     The next morning we drove far­ther along the coast to Eden Gardens State Park, where the focal point is the Wesley House. Lumber baron William Henry Wesley built the plantation style home, now surrounded by formal gardens, in 1897. The house fea­tures white columns, wrap-around porches and one of the largest col­lections of Louis XVI fur­ni­ture in the U.S. Sophia and Andy were at least slightly im­pressed when the guide pointed out that this fur­ni­ture was made to fur­nish the French royal palaces. We took a walk around the gardens and explored a na­ture trail, which led to Choctawhatchee Bay.

Relaxing on the front porch of the Wesley House, Eden Gardens State Park.

Sea­side

     Next was Sea­side, the planned community that began the New Urban­ism move­ment back in 1979 and  spawned the oth­er planned communities along the Panhan­dle’s Route 30A.

     Sea­side is a storybook town, where porches are wide, streets are narrow, and ev­ery­thing is with­in walking dis­tance. The ar­chi­tects who planned the community searched the Panhan­dle and oth­er ar­eas of the South for the best examples of wood­en vernac­ular ar­chi­tec­ture; then they devel­oped an ar­chi­tectural vocab­ulary that reg­ulates all of Sea­side.

Andy, Sophia, and Stella in Seaside.

     Adults will ap­preciate the aes­thet­ically pleas­ing results, but there is also plenty in Sea­side for kids, especially when it comes to food. Our first stop was Daw­son’s Yogurt & Fudge Works, on the central square, where we bought a slab of Tiger Fudge (milk chocolate, white chocolate, and peanut butter). Then we were off to Heav­enly Short­cakes and Ice Cream for au­thentic Ital­ian gelato.

Andy, Stella, Nancy and Sophia stop for a gelato break in Seaside.

     We window-shopped at book­stores, art gal­leries, cloth­ing boutiques and a toy store. When the kids said they were hungry again, we had a lunch of sandwiches and nachos on the terrace of Pickles Beach­side Grill.

Wa­ter­col­or

     As our Panhan­dle vacation came to a close, we explored Wa­ter­col­or, an­oth­er planned community just west of Sea­side on Route 30A.

     While Sea­side is an ide­alized South­ern beach town, Wa­ter­col­or is a Med­iterranean village, with ar­chi­tectural roots in Spain and Italy. The community is          

especially beautiful at night, when the street­lights come on, the arcades glow, and the palm trees sway in the breeze.

     We were starving when we arrived, so when we spied some kids playing in a fountain next to a sidewalk café, we stopped. The café turned out to be the restaurant attached to the Wa­ter­col­or branch of Wine Bar.

Stella and Sophia after playing in the fountain in Watercolor.

     We didn’t want wine, but the ambiance of the fam­ily-friendly eatery was per­fect, so we sat by the fountain and shared a pizza Margherita and an antipasto tray. Stella gobbled down the prosciutto before the rest of us could grab a slice. Nancy, Sophia and Andy devoured the pizza as I waxed po­et­ic about the mozzarella di bufala, artichokes and olives.

     I glanced at my cell phone — it was almost 10 p.m. The tempera­ture was a per­fect 70 degrees as the kids splashed wa­ter from the fountain on their moth­er and me. We were the last ones on the terrace as we fin­ished our Key lime pie and climbed back into the mi­ni-van.

     We all agreed the trip had been a big success — plenty of wa­ter, a bit of history, some communion with na­ture, and lots of kid-friendly food. We won’t be for­getting the Emerald Coast or the Forgotten Coast any time soon.