Above: The view from our balcony at the Royal Blues Hotel in Deerfield Beach, Florida

I have long found Florida to be a source of both fascination and frustration. Geographically, it is one of the more varied of the Lower 48 states, with eerie cypress swamps, flatlands where some 15,000 producers raise cattle, the incomparable Everglades and, of course, beaches, miles of them, 663 to be exact. And then there are the man-made attractions: Miami Beach, the Disney and Universal Studio parks, and the Kennedy Space Center. And therein lies my frustration. With so much to offer to so many people, one might suppose that Florida would have an abundance of hideaways of the type that I strive to find. But there has been a relative dearth. Recently, unwilling to concede defeat, I decided to renew my efforts in the Sunshine State.

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Above: The view from our balcony at the Royal Blues Hotel in Deerfield Beach, Florida

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