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Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!

Hereford, United...
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201 posts
42 reviews
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Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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Hi!

We are planning a holiday next year to America. We have never been to this part of the world before, (we"re from the UK)

There will be myself, my hubby, my Mum and our 2 children (age 19 and 16). We haven"t got a clue where to look first as the US is huge!! We love all sorts of animals, my husband would like to see crocodiles and alligators, in fact he loves all reptiles!! We"d like to see dolphins too in the sea. My 2 kids are interested in Space and me and my Mum love the beaches and shopping!! We all love good food too, especially seafood, fish and steak/burgers. We aren"t into crowdy noisy places!! Is there a particular area in America which would accommodate all our needs? Or am I asking the impossible??

I"ll look forward to all your comments, if you can help us, please? Thank you all so much!! xx

UK
Destination Expert
for Florida
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52,114 posts
20 reviews
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1. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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What month of the year? Most of florida would fit your bill. Do you want theme parks too? Will you be driving?

Beach towns, sunrises and surf? OR sunsets and pure white sands? Low rise low key? Or high rise with all the fun of the fair? Or some of both?

Tampa, Florida
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2. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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And for how long is this visit going to be? You'll definitely need a car to cover all the things you mentioned. Florida doesn't have the network of bus services like in the UK.

Melbourne, Florida
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for Melbourne, Florida, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge
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3. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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Duplicate post. See you other post for additional comments.

Hereford, United...
Level Contributor
201 posts
42 reviews
19 helpful votes
4. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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We would probably go in July for 2 weeks. I don"t know about theme parks, as my 2 kids don"t like the big rides!! Is NASA not a theme park? And can you see all the animals without going to a theme park?

We would definitely hire a car, yes, but we would also like to stay somewhere near restaurants and the beach so we don"t have to drive all the time!

And amanx, we would love the pure white sands and sunsets, but also a little bit of action too!!!

Tampa, Florida
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5. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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For white sands and sunsets you have to go to the West coast. The Kennedy Space Center is on the East coast - it is not considered to be a theme park but interesting nevertheless. So looks like you're in for quite a bit of driving.

UK
Destination Expert
for Florida
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52,114 posts
20 reviews
18 helpful votes
6. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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Ok, so look at the St Pete Beach area if you want a hotel or condo or Fort Myers Beach perhaps as wel as possibly Clearwater- Condo a better option for fmailes at a week or more than 2 hotel rooms.. BG is near enough for a Theme park. If you want a rental home with pool, there are some on the barrier islands, but more on the mainland i areas like say, Bradenton. I

t would be abt a 3 hour drive to KSC from ST pete beach, and about the same to the Everglades.

Orlando, Florida
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27 posts
7. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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You have two identical topics going. Theres more information in the other topic and a fantastic description of Cocoa Beach. http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g34515-i19-k6820711-Help_Travelling_to_the_US_with_a_19_and_16_year_old-Orlando_Florida.html is the other one.

NASA is not a theme park! It is a real operational launch site and there are often 1 or 2 rockets launched a month. This is the real thing not just rides because its where the human race left for trips to the moon and space probes are sent to other planets. I really recommend it unless you have really young children that might get bored because they don't understand what its all about.

If you stay at a beach you can rent villas with pools but they will be scarce and expensive right on the water. If you are OK with being off the beach by a few blocks you can more easily find villas. But I think it's more fun to be right on the beach. Some resorts have condos with separate bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens that are higher up and give a good view of the ocean but don't go too high or you lose touch with the beach. We recently stayed in Cocoa Beach at the Resort on Cocoa Beach and had a blast because they have so many activities. Next time we will look into some of the other resorts and private condos for rent. There are lots to choose from. Try http://www.homeaway.com for some listings.

Florida is a great place for a family vacation and building memories.

UK
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for Florida
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52,114 posts
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8. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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I don't really care about the thread in the wrong forum, Orlando. This is the correct forum to find a beach in Florida that might suit your needs with the widest possible responses.

If you want to describe Cocoa here, do so. But they said they wanted sunsets and white powder sand. Neither of which you get at Cocoa. If they said sunrises and surf, it would have been where I sent them.

9. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!

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Vero Beach, Florida
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for Vero Beach
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10. Re: Help?? Travelling to the US with a 19 and 16 year old??!!
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The Kennedy Space Center is a major historical site with extensive visitor facilities, but the visitor center has to pay for its own operations--not supported by NASA or the National Park Service, so it's not quite what you'd expect as a showcase for the nation's accomplishments.

The Space Center is bordered by Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore. There are fine opportunities to see manatees and birds, but of course you need a car.

Florida doesn't have a long list of pedestrian-friendly beach areas with restaurants and other activities near hotels. Clearwater would qualify (it's part of a large, very spread-out urban area, with some 4 million people), as would parts of Naples, a number of the southeast Florida beaches including Lauderdale by the Sea, (to some extent) St. Augustine's beach, which is really fairly quiet but very good for wandering around, New Smyrna Beach (if you're close to Flagler Avenue, the high street), and my own town, whose pedestrian-oriented beach shopping area tends to service wealthy retirees from places like New York City.

For wildlife, alligators are mostly best seen in captivity. If you take the boat tour at Blue Spring State Park north of Orlando, which goes along the St. Johns River (or boat tours in other parks), you're very likely to see alligators. It's difficult to see crocodiles in the wild. They're rare and shy. You can find advice on where to see manatees in most coastal areas. Dolphins are fairly common in many areas, though there's been a lot of deaths lately, possibly from polluted water in Florida and from a virus disease in the northeastern states.

Florida has spectacular birds. With just a little planning, you can see sandhill cranes, bald eagles, lots and lots of ospreys, pelicans (white ones in winter), caracaras, ibises, and roseate spoonbills. There's a number of Environmental Learning Centers around the state, and some of them provide great opportunities to see the local critters.

The northern part of the Florida peninsula has its own nature attractions, but the main cities (Daytona Beach and Jacksonville) are not exactly tourist destinations, and I don't think Gainesville, home of the huge University of Florida, is much thought of as a tourist destination, either.

Looking at the US as a whole, I'm sure destinations will be constrained a bit by convenient airports, air fares, and the interests of the kids and Mom. California has a bunch of nice coastal towns, including the rather big city of San Diego, which has one of the best zoos anywhere. A movie from last year, "Chasing Mavericks" gives a reasonably good portrait of Santa Cruz.

In terms of cities near beaches on the Atlantic coast, the western portion of Florida is weak on cities, strong on rampant development of coastal hotels and vacation homes. The region has an impressively rich flora and fauna, including spectacular pitcher plants. For more insect-eaters, Wilmington, North Carolina has become a fairly nice city over the past 30 or 40 years (the region was impoverished back around 1960, as were the South Carolina and Georgia coasts). Charleston was a grand city from the 1700s through the 1860s, with enough left to be a very busy tourist attraction. It has nice beaches nearby but murky water and little surf. Roughly the same with Savannah, which was a busy cottom port.

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