Florida Heritage Travel Volume III: Places off the Beaten Path

FLORIDA HERITAGE TRAVEL VOLUME III will entertain you with interesting stories about Florida places off the beaten path and off beat people. The book is a collection of articles from the complementary newsletter emailed monthly by Mike Miller, the author of the travel website, FLORIDA-BACKROADS-TRAVEL.COM. The typical article includes photographs or vintage postcards of the subject person or place.

Volume III contains 12 articles from 2015 and a special article about Hurricane Charley in Punta Gorda. Examples of places you will read about include Carrabelle and its role in World War Two’s D-Day invasion; St. Leo University and Lee Marvin’s prep school; Ocklawaha and Ma Barker and the FBI shootout; Florida Scenic Highway 30A and the Gulf beaches and many other interesting places around the state.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation defines cultural heritage tourism as “traveling to experience the places, artifacts and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present. It includes cultural, historic and natural resources”. This is a fancy way to describe what Mike Miller does both in his website and the newsletter. He travels around Florida and visits places – many times ordinary everyday places – and fills in some of the history to give you a sense of how the place came about and what the people were like who lived there.

The book can be enjoyed one article at a time or read all at once. It’s your choice. There is no plot. Its only goal is to entertain you.