12 Things Floridians Are Tired of Explaining to Everyone Who Visits
A tourist pulls onto Florida’s Turnpike, hits a toll gantry three exits in, and digs for quarters the cashless lanes won’t take.
A local would have had a SunPass beeping overhead and never tapped the brakes.
These are the things Floridians are tired of explaining to everyone who visits.
1. Love Bugs, Not Mosquitoes
Visitors driving down I-75 in May watch a wall of little black bugs splatter across the windshield and swear Florida grows giant mosquitoes.
They aren’t mosquitoes.
Love bugs are a kind of fly, and they swarm twice a year, in spring and again in late summer, for a few weeks each time.
They don’t bite or sting.
The trouble is your paint job.
The acid in a squashed love bug can etch clear coat if you leave the mess baking on a hot hood, so Floridians hit the car wash before it sets.
2. That Gator in the Pond
Newcomers spot an alligator sunning at the edge of a golf course pond and reach for a phone like they’ve seen a unicorn.
To Floridians, that’s a Tuesday.
The state holds an estimated 1.3 million wild alligators, spread through ponds, lakes, and canals in every corner of the state.
The gators had the place first.
The rule locals live by is short: Don’t feed them, don’t swim at dusk, and give any gator a wide berth.
Tossing a gator a snack is illegal, and it’s how a shy alligator learns to link people with food.
3. Afternoon Storms, Like Clockwork
Summer thunderstorms roll into Florida almost every afternoon, right on a sea-breeze schedule.
Tourists watch the sky go black over Orlando and figure the vacation is ruined.
It’ll pass.
The rain hammers down for half an hour, then the sky clears back to blue.
The real danger is the lightning: Florida is the lightning capital of the country, and the corridor between Tampa and Orlando sees more cloud-to-ground strikes than anywhere else.
Locals head inside at the first rumble of thunder, and they never wait out a storm under a tree.
4. Bugs You Can’t See
Every transplant meets no-see-ums the hard way, usually at a sunset cookout near the water.
You never spot them.
No-see-ums are biting midges barely bigger than a pinprick, and they slip right through a standard window screen to swarm at dawn and dusk.
The bites itch for days, worse than a mosquito’s.
Screened porches near the coast use a finer mesh built to stop them, and old-timers along the Gulf still swear by a spritz of Avon Skin So Soft.
5. Palmetto Bugs Have a Nicer Name
Sooner or later a visitor shrieks at a giant cockroach crossing the kitchen floor while a Floridian calmly calls it a palmetto bug.
Same insect.
“Palmetto bug” is the polite Southern name for the American cockroach, and in the heat they grow long enough to make a newcomer question their life choices.
Here’s the part that gets everyone: They fly.
A palmetto bug will buzz across a screened porch on a warm night and clear a room full of grown adults in seconds.
Floridians just sigh and grab a shoe.
6. Tolls, Tolls, and More Tolls
Florida has 719 miles of toll roads, more than any other state in the country.
Drivers from out of state hop on the Turnpike and can’t believe how often they pay to keep going.
Welcome to the toll state.
Most locals stick a SunPass transponder on the windshield so the tolls just beep and bill automatically, since paying by license plate costs more.
The Turnpike, the 408, the Selmon, the Veterans: A Floridian rattles off toll roads the way other people list interstates.
Psst! How much do you know about Florida’s history and geography? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
Sunshine State IQ
Answer nine questions on Florida’s history, geography, and state symbols. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Which Florida city is the oldest continuously occupied European-founded settlement in the United States?
7. Florida Man Isn't Your Neighbor
Every Floridian has fielded the joke about "Florida Man" and the wild headlines that follow him around the internet.
Blame the records.
A big reason those stories pile up is the state's broad public-records laws, which make arrest reports and mugshots easy for anyone to pull and post.
Reporters barely have to dig.
States with tighter records simply keep their odd arrests quieter, so their own version of Florida Man never trends.
The average Floridian is a nurse, a retiree, or a kid heading to Gainesville for school, not a headline.
8. Boiled Peanuts, Ordered Hot
Road-trippers pass a hand-painted "HOT BOILED P-NUTS" sign on US-98 and have no clue what's simmering in that roadside pot.
They're soft.
Boiled peanuts are raw green peanuts cooked for hours in salty water until the shell turns soft and the nut inside goes creamy.
Floridians grew up on them.
You crack the wet shell, slurp the peanut and the brine together, and toss the shell out the truck window.
The Cajun version adds a jolt of hot sauce and spice, and a good roadside stand sells them by the steaming bag.
9. No, We Don't Go to Disney Every Day
Anybody who lives near Orlando fields the same question from visitors: Do they hit the theme parks every single weekend?
They hardly go most weekends.
Locals who buy a Florida-resident annual pass treat the parks like a big backyard, popping in after work for one ride and a snack, then leaving before the fireworks.
They know the rhythm.
They skip spring break and the holiday weeks, park for free with the pass, and never once stand two hours for a roller coaster.
To a theme park passholder, Epcot at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday is just a nice place to walk.
10. It's the Humidity
Visitors glance at a forecast of 90 degrees and figure they've felt worse back home.
Then they step outside.
The number on the thermometer isn't the story in a Florida summer.
The dew point is.
Thick, soupy air keeps sweat from evaporating, so 92 degrees can feel like 105 by lunchtime.
Your shirt sticks in seconds.
Floridians run errands early, park in the shade, and treat a car's air conditioning like a medical device.
11. Yes, It Gets Cold
Newcomers laugh when a Floridian pulls out a parka the second the thermometer dips into the 50s.
We aren't kidding.
A hard cold snap can push the Panhandle below freezing and coat the strawberry fields near Plant City in protective ice.
South Florida has its own alarm: When it drops below 40, the National Weather Service warns about falling iguanas.
The cold stuns the lizards up in the trees, and they drop to the ground until they warm back up.
So a Floridian in a puffy coat at 55 degrees isn't overreacting, just acclimated to eight months of heat.
12. Florida Is Bigger Than It Looks
Visitors plan to "see Florida" in a long weekend and never grasp how far apart the corners sit.
It's enormous.
Pensacola sits so far west that it keeps Central time, a full hour behind Miami.
It's closer to New Orleans than to South Florida.
The drive from the western Panhandle down to the Keys covers more than 800 miles, a full day behind the wheel without crossing a single state line.
A Floridian can leave home at sunrise, drive until dark, and still not have made it out of Florida.
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It sends longtime Floridians reaching for a second cup of coffee and the cone on the weather map.
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So longtime residents trade their loose summer habits for a short list of hard August rules.
