The Florida You Don’t Know

Ask a British traveller to picture Florida and the images arrive instantly.  Theme parks. High-rise beachfront hotels.  Multi-lane highways lined with palm trees and billboards competing for attention. It is one of the most recognisable destinations on Earth.

Yet two hours north of Miami, there is a stretch of coastline that feels as though it belongs to a different state entirely.  And possibly another century.

Martin County sits on Florida's Treasure Coast, a region named after the wreck of a Spanish treasure fleet that sank offshore during a hurricane in 1715.  More than three centuries later, the occasional gold coin still washes up from the seabed, inspiring no end of intrigue. It is an appropriately fitting symbol for a destination whose greatest treasures are hidden in plain sight.

Unlike much of South Florida, Martin County never fully embraced the race towards ever-larger resorts and ever-taller condominium towers.  Development exists, but it’s restrained. No development is allowed over four storeys and any building on the coastline is required to keep its ocean-facing lighting restrained.  If you’ve come from Miami, you’ll definitely notice.

The difference becomes apparent almost immediately. Beaches stretch for miles without a forest of skyscrapers behind them. Sea turtle nests are marked out with flags and avoided by beach walkers. On some mornings, it is possible to walk significant stretches of shoreline without seeing more than a handful of other people.

This is not an accident. Martin County has spent decades protecting the landscapes that made the area distinctive in the first place. More than 100,000 acres of parks, conservation land and protected habitats surround the county, creating one of the richest ecological corridors in the south-eastern United States.

A Landscape Like No Other

Water is the thread that connects everything here.

The St Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon form part of an intricate network of estuaries that support more than 4,000 species of plants and animals.  Dolphins are common sightings. Manatees drift through the shallows during cooler months. Roseate spoonbills, with their improbable pink plumage, provide regular reminders that nature occasionally has a stronger imagination than humans.  The nearby Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center has replicated this ecosystem in a 750,000 gallon tank, which contains turtles, nurse sharks and schools of fish, many unique to this stretch of coastline.

The lagoon itself is one of the most biologically diverse estuaries in North America. Local guides often describe it as Florida's nursery, a place where countless marine species spend the earliest stages of their lives before moving into the Atlantic Ocean.

That relationship with the natural world extends beyond passive observation. Across the county, conservation organisations have increasingly focused on helping visitors understand the environments they are exploring.  Martin County has partnered with Leave No Trace to provide Turtle walks, organised by Explore Natural Martin, guided nature programmes and citizen science projects have become popular ways for travellers to engage with the landscape rather than simply photograph it.  Simple lessons like flattening your sandcastles or filling in holes before leaving (both are a hazard to newly hatched turtles) give visitors simple-to-follow lessons for future beach visits.

Speaking of turtles, these are Martin County’s most storied ambassadors.

Sea turtles have nested along Florida's Atlantic coastline for millions of years, long before the arrival of tourists, treasure hunters or property developers. Today, the county’s beaches form part of one of the most important nesting regions anywhere on the planet. During summer months, the shoreline becomes the stage for one of nature's most remarkable cycles as females emerge from the ocean to lay eggs beneath the cover of darkness.  They often return to the same stretch of beach as they originally hatched, a remarkable feat of memory and geolocation.

Florida’s Original Eras Tour

Wildlife is only part of the story.  History also runs deeper here than many visitors expect from a Floridian holiday.

Long before modern tourism arrived, Indigenous communities lived along these waterways. Spanish explorers navigated the coast during the sixteenth century – further north they established a cowboy culture that pre-dates the Wild West by three centuries. Commercial fishing shaped local livelihoods. Shipwrecks brought both tragedy and opportunity – the newly re-opened House of Refuge holds all manner of stories from this history.

Each era has left traces behind, contributing to a version of Florida history that receives far less attention than the familiar stories of theme parks and beach resorts.   It also helps that the County has had a fiercely independent streak, petitioning successfully to split from larger Palm Beach county.  All of these stories – plus one of the largest classic car collections you’ll ever seen – can be seen at the Elliot Museum, conveniently located next to the beach.

Florida is often presented as a place of reinvention, a destination where new developments constantly replace old landscapes. Martin County feels different. It has evolved, certainly, but not at the expense of celebrating what has made it so unique in the first place.

For travellers willing to look beyond Florida's most famous attractions – or wanting a counterpoint to Miami’s glitz - that may be the state's greatest surprise of all.  

Read the full story in Darkus Q3 edition.

Phil Thomas is a travel journalist based in Cambridge, UK.  You can follow his adventures on his blog Someone Else’s Country and on Instagram (@exploresomeoneelsescountry).  Phil was supported on his visit by Visit Florida, and Discover Martin County