USA : Tampa to Palm Beach – Woke and Awake Travel

Tampa To Palm Beach Road Trip via Naples

Over the years we were frequent visitors to the popular Florida strip around Disney – Kissimmee/Haines City, even spending one New Year at Celebration a Disney Master Planned Community, so no surprise fake snow was falling on New Years eve. These days the attraction of queuing endlessly in high humidity at the theme parks has lost some of the draw, so we decided to plan something a little different for a pre-Easter break.

Connectivity to the USA from Ireland has never been better, so options are plentiful and prices more competitive if you miss the popular Florida east coast airports. We opted for Tampa, via Boston with Delta, one hour wait in Boston sounds tight but in America they make life easy, so the bags go through to Tampa and the arrival gate is close to departure gate, so plenty of time for a beer. Arrival into Tampa was before 8pm but collecting car rentals in the states can be great or terrible, Tampa was the later. The car rental terminal is a five-minute shuttle away, but the staff were bewildered, more interested in selling everyone more insurance on a bigger car than they had ordered wanted or needed. One rip off is the sale of sun pass (road tolls), for $14 a day, reality is tolls are hard to avoid but most take credit card or cash and can be $ 1 or $ 2 dollars, unless you spent your entire holiday in the car you would never clock up $ 14 a day in tolls, but this being America they have an answer for that, some tolls don’t take cash or card, we hit one received the $10 fine, and $ 2 charge which goes to your credit card, so still the best option by far is to ignore the kind offer. Anyway, despite the lengthy car check in process, arrived at the garage, who brought the wrong car watched us drive off called us back, and then half an hour later apologized and gave us a 7 -seater for the two of us.

First night we stayed in Clearwater, only 30 minutes from the airport great beach resort with late bars and eateries, not long before we were ensconced in an America diner navigating the fare of hydrogenated vegetable oil served with a generous helping of molten cheese atop a compressed meat wedge gulping a bud light.

We ended the night with a model on the balcony –in the background.

Early out next day to a wonderful sun rise from the hotel:

Clearwater and St Pete’s beach run for miles down the Western side of Florida connected by huge road bridges stretching out into the Gulf of Mexico: Fabulous if you are looking for a beach holiday in the sun.

We were heading South to Cape Coral and to what was described as the biggest Tiki bar in America, attached to our accommodation the Dolphin Key Resort, half closed due to recent hurricanes in the area, (see link 1 ).

Not too much in Cape Coral but lovely setting and if you had a boat a great community to live in, it even boasts a Hooters, although I’m not sure it was open. However, we did find a great restaurant Duval street and, on the way home a lovely wine bar aptly named Palace pub and wine bar.( see Link 2).

Continuing our Florida odyssey, we packed up and headed to Naples, along Fort Myers Beach area, completed devastated by hurricanes.

Fortunately, Naples escaped, and we parked up at the IHG group’s Holiday Inn just outside downtown, a very comfortable place to stay with indoor sanitation.( see link 3)

Naples is a lovely town with two distinct areas Tin City, with bar and restaurants out on a pier, and the old downtown area.

A mature downtown area full of charm:

Leaving Naples behind we headed down Alligator alley highway I-75 towards Fort Lauderdale and then North to Palm Beach, the one thing about southern Florida is that it is vast, flat and swampy, so after the first few miles the other 100 odd are pretty much the same, but the highways get you to where you are going fast, until you hit traffic heading into city suburbs.

Driving into West Palm Beach is like any other urban area, a mix of dilapidation, with a few nice bits, however crossing over to Palm Beach itself over the southern boulevard you enter the millionaire’s playground, where one house is bigger than the next and more expensive, the first to greet us with a dilapidated occupant Mar-a Lago

We were hurried on and told can’t stop here, we needed no encouragement to leave, and drove the few blocks up to meet our most amicable and generous hosts who would look after us for the next few days, in a wonderful guest house overlooking the pool at the rear of their palatial property.

Sadly, couldn’t find the keys to either! Perhaps one day.

Palm beach is predominately a winter retreat for the wealthy, from disgraced financiers, dodgy socialites and dodgier football club owners, it played and still plays host to many on the worlds rich list. A designer world centered around Worth avenue it is a perfectly manicured strip of land catering for all tastes if you have the wallet. If you like big flags, bling and support orange coloured narcissist types, you can apply for membership to Mar-A -Lago for 500K, or, as we did head to Breakers. A famous hotel with a wonderful beach club we were lucky enough to enjoy thanks to our most generous host.

Ladies that lunch

The restaurants in Palm beach are all exclusive, arriving in style @ Bricktops

The real stand out was Ta-boo, described as an Elegant, 1941-vintage bistro which matches a Continental-American menu with buzzy vibes & an active bar.

Despite being spoilt in Palm Beach we still had time to nip to an interesting bar outside Jupiter for a game of electronic darts, we didn’t stay too long when the clientele changed.