Month: May 2021

Sun Country Airlines is adding new flights to Southwest Florida starting late this year, which means that more affordable flight options will soon be available for our guests from the Upper Midwest.

The airlines is adding Punta Gorda Airport (PGD) to its routes from Minneapolis starting mid-December.

Also around that time, new seasonal flights to Fort Myers (RSW) will start from Milwaukee, Duluth and Green Bay,  » Read more

The countdown has started!

Returning September 17 – 26, 2021, the award-winning Island Hopper Songwriter Fest will once again feature hundreds of amazing songs from the very people who wrote them.  The 7th annual festival takes place over 10 days and offers a range of star-studded performances by some of country music’s greatest singer-songwriters from Nashville and beyond.

It kicks off on Captiva Island Sept.  » Read more

“To the world you are a Mother,

but to your family, you are the World.”

   » Read more

Published on LessonsLearnedInLife.com

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Did you ever wonder why the Gulf of Mexico is not an ocean?  They are both very large bodies of saltwater, after all.

For those who remember grade school geography, while both oceans and gulfs are indeed large bodies of saltwater, gulfs are smaller and are bordered on three sides by land.  Oceans, the largest bodies of water in the world, have no exact boundaries,  » Read more

Outside of Hawaii, Florida is the only state to have extensive coral reef formations near its coasts.

Coral reefs grow only in specific ecosystems with the right depth and temperature of water, and the right mix of nutrients and wave action.

In addition to being some of the most beautiful and biologically diverse habitats in the ocean, coral reefs are also some of the oldest.  » Read more

You can call the Gulf of Mexico an “Aquatic Highway” if you’d like!

The Nature Conservancy recently analyzed data on 26 species identifying four major migratory pathways — dubbed “blueways” — that criss-cross the Gulf.

These routes are used extensively by fish, mammals, sea turtles, and birds, with migrations occurring year-round.

However, less than one percent of these aquatic corridors have been classified as marine protected areas,  » Read more

Photo from the NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program

As you can imagine, the water surrounding Florida has become a graveyard of sorts for many a shipwreck.   

In fact, scientists estimate that more than 4,000 shipwrecks are now resting on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, casualties of centuries’ worth of shifting sands and treacherous storms.  

Since a large part of the Gulf is right over the North American Continental Shelves,  » Read more

Photo from Jetsetter

Without a doubt, the sugar white sand beaches that line the Gulf of Mexico are among the most beautiful in the world.

But there’s so much more to the waters we call home, as the Gulf is a diverse ecosystem with a long and interesting history.  We thought we’d spend this week learning a bit more about it!  » Read more

Photo from Neapolitan Family

By Allison Tibaldi from FamilyVacationist.com:

Skip-gen travel, also called gramping, is a growing travel trend of grandparents and grandkids traveling together without the children’s parents (so it skips the middle generation).

With pandemic fatigue hitting hard, a skip-gen vacation might be exactly the kind of multigenerational vacation that kids,  » Read more