What do you think of when you think of North Florida and the Panhandle?

North Florida is a large area, nearly as large as the Florida peninsula. You will find a lot of variety in North Florida. On the eastern side, you will find Jacksonville and St Augustine. Jacksonville is the largest city in the state. This is partly due to city and county consolidation and partly because Jacksonville is a city built on commerce. You can certainly do business in Jacksonville. St Augustine is a sleepy southern city overflowing with history. It is the oldest continually occupied city in North America (nearly 450 years). The centerpiece of the city is the old Spanish fort. There are museums and tourist attractions, including beaches, dining and theme parks like The Alligator Farm. Just west of Jacksonville are Raiford and Stark, home to state prisons and our "Death Row." The Big Bend area is home to the State Capitol in Tallahassee and the historic universities of FSU and FAMU. It is also home to the state's oyster industry. I think the best part of the big bend are the natural areas, with several great parks for hiking, paddling and camping. The British Olympic Cycling team used the area to train for the Atlanta Olympics. We have miles of on and off-road cycling trails, with much more variation in altitude than most outsiders would expect to find in Florida. There is even a beautifully preserved cave system in the small town of Marianna. Further west into the panhandle, you will find Eglin Airforce Base and the Naval Air Station in Pensacola. The beaches have sand as white as sugar. The area around Panama City Beach is known as the Redneck Riviera. Where the Big Bend is referred to as SoGaNoFla, the Panhandle is FloriBama. It may only be a short ride down I-10 between these areas, but they are very different to the locals. We get just enough cold every year to say we are tired of winter in North Florida but the Spring and Fall are amazing. Summer can be overbearing until you jump into one of the many cold water springs in our area. Having grown up in Miami, I can barely imagine a more beautiful area  of our state.

I moved to Florida at age 10, stayed through college, moved up north, then moved back and have lived here for 30 years.  Raised my children here.  Florida is a complex state.  It is long and bounded on three of its four borders by water.  People in the south end have a full days drive just to get out of the state, and the south of Georgia and Alabama aren't that different than North Florida and the Panhandle.   There isn't much of a sense of "we" in Florida's residents.  There is more of a sense of "them" and "us."  The north is a separate entity, Central Florida is another.  The east and west coasts have their own identity and the far south has a culture of its own.  People in Florida are not likely to be natives.  Their identity is strongly shaped by where they lived before they came to Florida.  As you can imagine, all of this creates some problems.

I've lived in South West Florida nearly my entire life. I've bern to our capitol only once. I cannot even spell it. They spoke with an accent that could stop a train. I would be v remiss if I didn't tell everyone how extremely nice and cordial they are.

I'd never really thought about North Florida until I'd had a few friends from there or who live there now, and when I'd moved to Georgia. I haven't been there still, but people keep saying, especially here, how it's really an extension of what we think of as the South tradition-wise and culturally, though there are some differences. The exception I tend to hear, though, is life around Fort Walton Beach, which is the mixed bag of the area.

When I think of North and Central Florida, I think of the natural land beauty that is still preserved. I think of our state capitol, farming, and the Bible Belt. Even in the cities of north Florida, the people are still like the good considerate God fearing rural people. I grew up in South Florida, and left the city behind for the North. The beaches have a beauty of their own, but the people in the south do not respect the land and are destroying it in favor of building it up. I have never lived in New York City, but from what I hear South Florida is actually worse. At least New Yorkers stick up for each other and in crisis pull together, you will be hard pressed to find that in south Florida, just the rude inconsiderate busy hustle. and having traveled pretty much the whole state, I agree that each region of Florida has its own personality .