THOMAS SWICK was the travel editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel from 1989 to 2008, and his work appeared in six editions of The Best American Travel Writing. He is the author of four books, the most recent being Falling into Place: A Story of Love, Poland, and the Making of a Travel Writer.
We Floridians are viewed by other Americans the way Americans are viewed by many Europeans: as primitive, mystifying, hellacious beings living in a paradise lost Deprived of a history, we are not taken seriously, though we are considered capable of creating great chaos. It’s the combination—conundrum?—that’s at the heart of much of the ridicule: We are laughable, on a national scale, and also terrifying, whether robbing convenience stores with live alligators or making a mess of our election ballots. To reside here, at least for the self-conscious, is to live in a constant state of sheepishness.
I experienced it as soon as I made the decision to move to Florida. I was working as an editorial writer at The Providence Journal in Rhode Island, as unhappy professionally as I was geographically, when an offer arrived to become the travel editor of the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. Because of my passion for travel writing, the job location hardly mattered, but it bothered me that I would be living in a state many of my friends had no desire to visit. Florida was seen then—this was the late ’80s—as the land of Disney World (childishness) and Century Village (senility). It was not a place for discerning adults.
Looking at apartments, my wife and I did notice a scarcity of bookshelves. But every morning, I drove to a newsroom populated by people who not only read but also wrote. Susan Puckett, the food editor and author of A Cook’s Tour of Iowa, taught me the line: “When you move to South Florida, you have to get used to the non-culture shock.” The reporters, meanwhile, raved about what a great news place this was, giving the first intimations of today’s Florida Man memes. These feature a photograph of some seemingly deranged man with an explanatory headline always beginning, “Florida Man…” Florida Man declares end of the war on drugs, claiming: “I did them all.” … Florida Man arrested for throwing pizza at father after finding out his dad helped birth him …
As someone who got his stories elsewhere and saw the region primarily as a place to live, I was less excited about its ability to provide colorful copy. What it gave me was the gift of travel, even when I wasn’t traveling. I had changed not just jobs but also latitudes, climates, landscapes, wardrobes. Simply stepping out of the apartment was thrilling, especially during a thunderstorm. I had never seen rain fall so hard; drops crashed on the pavement and splattered with a sparkling, teeming ferocity. Nor had I lived in a place—it’s