Visit Apalachicola: The Forgotten Florida Coast
There’s only one traffic light along its main road, the two-lane Highway 98.
The town has only two fast food restaurants, a Burger-King and a Subway. The nearest Starbucks is said to be 80 miles away.
There are no high-rises and no strip malls.
The wide beaches in the area are different for reasons that go beyond their white, sugary sand and handsome sand dunes. They’re lonely. No crowds. Few human footprints.
And even at the height of the tourist season, residents say they can sometimes walk for miles with no one else in sight.
“This is the way Florida used to look,” visitors often say. “This is the real Florida.”
Ninety miles southwest of Florida’s capital, Tallahassee, this tiny city is served by no convenient interstate or airport. It’s sixty miles west of fast-growing Panama City Beach, the small, former spring break retreat that has become a high-rise developer’s dream with frantic building activity that makes Miami Beach’s construction cranes look anemic.
Apalachicola is a town of just over 3,000 people in a county, Franklin, that has no more than 12,000 people.
It’s in the heart of what are promoters in the past decade have been calling the “Forgotten Florida.”
A deliberately sleepy city like this one, where the buildings are limited to three stories, is a good place to start when you want to see the “other Florida.”
There’s such a lack of glitz and glamour here that as recently as 1991, a state promotional map failed to mention much of the northwest part of the state that includes cities such as Apalachicola and Port St. Joe. That’s when tourism officials began a modest campaign to get some attention.
Unlike much of newcomer Florida, Apalachicola has a real history. It goes back to the 1830s, when it developed as a cotton kingdom. It became the third largest port on the Gulf of Mexico. Then came the lumber industry, and then fishing, particularly oyster harvesting.
Fishing has remained a staple. Franklin County oysters represent more than 90% of the oysters consumed in Florida and 10% consumed in the entire US, according to the local chamber of commerce.
Visitors find out there’s not a lot to do in a town where the two biggest attractions are modest at best. The first is a tiny museum, $1 to see, which pays homage to the mostly forgotten inventor of the ice machine, Dr. John Gorrie. Trying to help his patients during a yellow fever epidemic, he invented the ice machine that later led to air conditioning. Gorrie had a patent but died before he could profit from it.
A second major attraction on Sixth Avenue or the town’s major highway, 98, is the Chestnut Street Cemetery. Moss-draped, dingy grey stones mark the passing of people who have lived here since 1831. Tiny confederate flags single out the soldiers who fought in that war.
There’s a handful of shops and stores spread out over a few blocks, but the closest thing to a real shopping center is the boutique-style Grady Market, which has up to a dozen small stores that sell art, antiques and clothing.
Worth seeing at the end of town is Sipio Basin, where visitors might debate whether a handful of ancient, weather-beaten shrimp boats are still active or not. The answer, most of the time, is yes.
Within walkable distance is a national research center on wetland life and a public exhibit, the Estuarine Walk. It has child-friendly information on many local creatures such as Gulf toadfish, alligator snappers, and Suwannee cooter turtles. If children are along, this might be worth visiting, but it’s far from Walt Disney World country.
Where do you stay while here?
When it’s easy to identify the best hotel around, you know it’s a small town. Here, it’s The Consulate. Only four rooms or suites, priced as low as $108, depending on how many nights you stay, but more likely to cost $200 and up.
Perhaps the two best places to stay, where you get the most for your money, are the Coombs House Inn, a B&B, and the 30-room Gibson Inn.
The Coombs at the turn-of-the-century was regarded as the most elegant home in the city. The Gibson’s major distinction is that it is one of the few buildings on the Federal Register of Historic Places that is still operating as a full service hotel.
Rooms can be had at both places for less than $100.
Both are also Victorian style and about a century old. Period furnishings make guests feel like they’re in another era.
At the Gibson, you can ask for a room with a claw foot tub. The Gibson also has a restaurant and bar; it’s where the locals get much of their gossip.
How much time might you want to spend in Apalachicola?
Perhaps make a day of it. But then get on the scenic, water-hugging Highway 98 to visit some of the various beaches and beachfront communities that stretch all the way to the relatively big city lights of Panama City.
One place not to miss: The St. Joseph Peninsula State Park at Cape San Blas.
When asked why visitors want to come to the later, assistant park manager Dan Kemp points to the wide beach with perhaps a half dozen people splashing around in the strikingly green-blue gulf water, and says:
“Just take a look for yourself. They come for the sand quality, the water quality and the lack of development. Fishing is great here, and the shelling is excellent.”
St. Joseph’s wide beaches with majestic sand dunes dotted with swaying sea oats are hardly undiscovered. The world’s most famous beach evaluator, Dr. Stephen Leatherman, or “Dr. Beach,” as he is more commonly known, once named it the best in the world.
But it also has a state park that has consistently been voted the best in Florida. Perhaps that’s in part because of its sprawling size: 2,526 acres, including a 1750-acre wilderness preserve.
Nine miles of gulf shoreline include the sugar-white colored sand with awesome dunes that are usually 30 feet high (the tallest are 41 feet), buffeting the beach. Wooden walkways are handmade, but that’s the only human touch. No hot dog stands or bicycle rentals here, ala most of Florida’s beaches.
All types of water sports are played at the park, which is between the bay and the gulf. It also has several campgrounds. And cabins with wooden pathways that lead to the bay side can also be rented for $80 a night.
Small beachfront cities along scenic 98 all have their own distinct personalities. Mexico Beach, for example, draws a family crowd in part because of its fine shelling and limited nighttime activity, but it also has a very popular nightspot: Toucan’s Restaurant.
In Cape San Blas, the 28-mile barrier island, St. George Island, also has some of the most serene beaches in the state. High-rises are banned, of course, and the beach offers soaring dunes, sandy coves and salt marshes. There are hiking trails, boardwalks and observation platforms. Bird watching is popular. Bald eagles are not unusual, nor are dolphins.
Visitors find where to eat here is a problem, but a pleasing one. There are many inexpensive restaurants where seafood is obviously fresh, right from the docks, so it’s sometimes hard to choose. Restaurants I can easily recommend include:
Ã?· The modest-looking Tamara’s CafÃ?© Floridita in downtown Apalachicola is owned and operated by Tamara Suarez, a native of Caracas, Venezuela who has teamed Florida with South American tastes. The result is a menu that has won many food awards for dishes such as her Pecan Crusted Grouper with a creamy jalapeÃ?±o sauce.
Ã?· Boss Oyster, also in Apalachicola, offers a wide variety of oysters steamed, flame-broiled, or just chilled with various toppings such as seaweed and Wasabi fish roe. “For oyster lovers only,” there’s a dozen oysters and four toppings for $15.95.
�· The Sunset Coastal Grill in Port St. Joe has a country club feel to it. The restaurant overlooks St. Joseph Bay. A suggestion: dine at sunset. Every dish on the menu is carefully prepared and nicely served. Dinner only.
Ã?· For those looking to spend more money, “Fish out of Water” at the upscale WaterColor development has such dishes as rack of lamb ($33) with deserts that include Lavender CrÃ?¨me Brulee with Florida Orange Sorbet ($8).
Ã?· The unpainted clapboard exterior of the Indian Pass Raw Bar suggests to many passers-by that it is closed but don’t let looks fool you. Don’t expect much atmosphere inside the restaurant, either. The short menu is printed on the wall. Oysters, steamed, raw or baked, never fried, all coming super fresh from the bar’s own nearby 53-acre oyster bed.
