11 Things Floridians Do That Would Horrify the Rest of America

Florida is not so much a state as it is a social experiment that got out of hand sometime around 1960 and has been accelerating ever since. It is simultaneously the place where careers go to launch, where retirements go to flourish, where spring breaks go to be documented, and where the general concept of “normal” goes to quietly die in the humidity. Sixty-seven counties, twenty-two million people, zero state income tax, and an arrangement with the universe that guarantees something deeply unhinged will happen here before the week is out. Slather on the SPF and try to stay hydrated.

1. Check the Florida Man headlines every morning like it’s the local weather

Florida has a sunshine law requiring most government records to be public, which means that every arrest, every incident report, and every act of spectacular human poor judgment gets documented and released to a grateful media. Floridians have made peace with this. They read the headlines. They nod. They go about their day. The rest of America is horrified. Florida is mildly entertained and completely unsurprised.

2. Drive in ways that suggest the concept of lanes is purely decorative

Florida’s roads contain every demographic simultaneously — teenagers, retirees, tourists with rental cars, and people who learned to drive in countries with entirely different rules — and the result is a vehicular ecosystem governed by chaos theory. Turning signals are considered optional. The left lane is for going slow. Merging is a suggestion. Floridians navigate this daily with the thousand-yard stare of combat veterans.

3. Casually mention alligators in places alligators have no business being

“There’s a gator in the retention pond again.” “Gator on the golf course, had to wait for it to move.” “Found a small one in the pool, called the trapper.” These sentences are spoken in Florida with the emotional register of reporting mild inconvenience. The rest of America would evacuate the zip code. Floridians reschedule the tee time.

4. Eat Cuban food with a regional loyalty that borders on nationalism

Tampa’s Cuban sandwich — built with roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, and pressed flat and golden — is considered by Floridians to be one of the great achievements of human civilization. The debate between Tampa and Miami over who makes it correctly is conducted with passion, specificity, and a complete refusal to concede any ground. It is not just a sandwich. It is an identity.

5. Debate hurricane preparedness with the energy of competing philosophers

When a hurricane forms in the Gulf or Atlantic, Florida divides immediately into camps. The Evacuators leave early and feel righteous about it. The Sheltering-in-Placers board up the windows and stockpile provisions and feel righteous about it. The Party Through It crowd buys extra beer and feels righteous about it. Everyone is convinced they are correct. Everyone has survived enough storms to have strong evidence for their position.

6. Swim in natural springs in the middle of winter and call it refreshing

Florida’s freshwater springs maintain a constant temperature of around 68°F year-round, which in February feels warm enough for Floridians but produces involuntary gasping in anyone who grew up somewhere with seasons. Locals slide in with the ease of people returning to a familiar chair. Tourists lower themselves in one horrified inch at a time. Floridians find this extremely funny.

7. Treat theme park annual passes as a normal household utility

For much of Central Florida, a Walt Disney World or Universal annual pass is a line item in the family budget right alongside the electric bill and the mortgage. Locals pop in for a few hours on a Wednesday evening the way others might grab dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. The magic is still there — it just coexists comfortably with a certain logistical familiarity about parking and wait times and which restaurants take reservations.

8. Refuse to acknowledge that the humidity is a problem

Florida in August is roughly 95°F with 90% humidity, which means the air itself is essentially a warm, wet blanket that has been left in a sauna. Floridians walk outside, absorb this information, and continue moving. New arrivals stand in the driveway for a moment too long and feel their glasses fog up. “You get used to it,” say Floridians, which is technically true and also one of the more alarming things a person can say.

9. Have strong opinions about which coast is superior and never drop it

The Gulf Coast crowd will tell you the water is warmer, clearer, and calmer, the sunsets are unmatched, and the pace of life is exactly right. The Atlantic Coast contingent will point to the surf, the energy, the proximity to Miami, and the general sense that things are actually happening. Floridians from each coast discuss the other with a mild pity usually reserved for people who made one critical wrong turn in life. Neither side is moving.

10. Own a boat that spends more time at the marina than on the water

Florida has more registered boats than any other state in America, which means Florida also has more boats sitting in marina slips not moving than anywhere else on Earth. Owning the boat is the point. The freedom it represents, the possibility of heading out on a Sunday — this is what matters. Actually going out involves preparation, fuel prices, weather checks, and coordinating schedules, which is a lot. The boat is right there. It’ll happen soon.

11. Retire here from the Northeast, spend a decade complaining about Florida, and never leave

The pipeline from New York, New Jersey, and New England to Florida is one of the great migrations of the modern era, producing a population of transplants who arrived for the tax benefits and weather, immediately began cataloguing everything Florida does wrong compared to back home, and have now been here for eleven years with no departure date in sight. They miss the seasons. They miss the pizza. They call Florida “crazy.” They renewed their Florida driver’s license last spring.

Florida is not going to change, clean itself up, or start making more conventional decisions anytime soon — and that is precisely what makes it one of the most genuinely alive places in the country. It is loud, sweaty, contradictory, beautiful, absurd, and completely committed to being exactly this much of itself at all times. The beaches are real. The sunsets are staggering. The springs are ancient and crystalline and cold. And somewhere out there right now, a Florida Man is doing something that will be a headline by morning, a meme by noon, and forgotten entirely by the weekend — because Florida never runs out of material. It never has. It never will.