This year, I opted to escaped the harsh winter of the Northeast and headed down South. While making plans for my travels, I’ve gotten questions about traveling to Florida for a winter/cycling vacation. Todays post will make an effort to provide some answers, especially for people who are interested in escaping winter and doing a cycling holiday in Florida for the first time.
So to start let’s talk about the weather in Florida, cause it’s really the main driver of why my husband and I come here. One good thing about Florida weather during the winter is that it’s mainly sunny, warm, and temperate. You can get the odd cloudy day and the occasional thunderstorm that will roll through, but it’s officially the dry season, and you should see the sun most of the time. By Florida standards, the humidity level is also quite reasonable, although you can still get a muggy day every so often. From time to time, it is possible to get some early morning fog along the coastline, but this usually burns off by 11:00 AM at the latest. Bugs and mosquitoes aren’t really a problem during the winter months.
When my husband and I decided on our travel to Florida, we opted to drive down. For this trip, driving was a realistic option since we were planning to stay long enough and this year we decided do a bit of exploring on our way to stay for two months. Our route consisted of two main highways. Taking the I-81 was a scenic winter drive through the Appalachian Mountains and as we got further south, it became flat and monotonous as we connected to the I-95. For our first night we stayed in Staunton, Virginia in a historical building called the Blackburn Inn and the second night we stayed in Charleston, GA at an Airbnb which was beautiful. We loved Charleston so much we plan to return on our drive back up to NY! In total, it took us approximately 18 hours to drive between 2.5 days.
When thinking about taking your personal bike for travel, you may want to ship it with bikeflights.com. Usually I take my bike to my local bike shop to do the initial packing and shipping and I personally do the return with the shipping and packing. This helps to remind me of how to pack my bike and save a bit of money on the shipping and supplies. If you opt out of shipping, you may want to consider renting a bike as there are plenty of bike shops to accommodate your needs but I think shipping is much more cheaper than renting for a few days.
You can read my post on shipping with Bike Flights here.
When it comes to cycling, Florida is full of contradictions. It doesn’t take long to realize that the place is extremely car-centric, and yet, Florida has many more bike lanes and bike trails than what is typically found in New York. Drivers are allowed to use hand held cell phones in Florida, and yet, the state has a 3-foot passing law (although it is rarely, if ever enforced).
It can sometimes be difficult to anticipate how motorists will interact with cyclists. With so many tourists from various jurisdictions throughout North America, drivers bring with them both the bad and good practices of their home states or provinces. Some are courteous with cyclists, while others threat them as if they don’t belong on the road. Moreover, as a popular retirement destination, Florida has more than its share of elderly drivers. Local cyclists joke that “It’s not the grandparents you have to worry about, it’s the parents of the grandparents that you have to watch out for”.
Cycling on the sidewalks is legal in Florida, but banned in many municipalities. Whatever the case, tourist areas are often littered with sidewalk riders. My guess is that most of these are consummate motorists who thought it would be nice to rent a bike and do a little pedaling during their vacation. Since they believe that cyclists belong on the sidewalks, this is where they go riding, even when there’s an adjacent bike lane. On more than one occasion, I have witnessed pedestrians walking in the bike lane while people where cycling on the sidewalk.
One of the big challenges for cyclists is dealing with (or avoiding) the large multi lane congested roads that seem to infest many areas of Florida. Trying to use the ‘vehicular cycling‘ technique to turn through an intersection involving these types of roads would not be for the faint of heart. Motorists would not expect to see, nor be on the look out for cyclists in such circumstances.
Despite these idiosyncrasies and challenges, Florida isn’t all that bad a place for cycling. For one thing, you don’t have to worry about any ice or snow. If you don’t like hills, most of Florida is flat, as in very flat. More importantly, it’s possible to find large areas where cycling is not only practical, but also a relaxing and enjoyable activity. In these areas, you can map out extended cycling routes on roads that often have paved shoulders or bike lanes, and that minimize contact with the busy multi lane thoroughfares. Confirmation of this can be found in the fact that some areas have numerous large and well stocked bike shops and several bicycle clubs. It is quite common to see group rides as well as solo cyclists on many of the local roads and pathways.
So that’s it. Hopefully you now have everything you’ll need to plan a winter-get-away cycling vacation in Florida. (Don’t forget the sunscreen.)