Living on a boat has been a very interesting experience, but I’m glad to say it has come to an end. After the first week of living on the boat, we knew it wasn’t going to be a long term arrangement as we previously thought before buying it. So we put a post on Craigslist to try and resell the boat, with plans of living on it, until it did. Well that day just came and we had an offer on the boat we decided to accept!
I find it to be a very happy and sad day at the same time. I’m glad to move off the boat and find a bigger spot to live, I’m sad because this adventure, that I had such high hopes for, is over.
The biggest question is where to go and live now! I basically have been traveling for the last eight months and only have been staying put in a place, for a couple months at a time. I now now I want to stay somewhere for maybe a whole YEAR!
Although there are some great things about Fort Lauderdale I know I do not what to live in Florida for a year, especially in the summertime, I won’t deal will with the high humidity and heat. I find leaving Fort Lauderdale harder than I expected.
I have been all over Florida East coast and West coast, even all the way down the keys. But for some reason through my life I have always bypassed Fort Lauderdale for Miami. Therefor missing out what turns out to be one of my favorite spots in Florida.
FORT LAUDERDALE-THE CITY
Fort Lauderdale has a lot of the Florida feel to it-strip malls and traffic, but it also has some unique spots as well, that makes living there fun.
First you have Las Olas Blvd, if you ever plan living or even vising Fort Lauderdale this is the place to be close to. This is where all the restaurants, night life and shopping is. It is a very high end area and most the restaurants are unique minus the cheesecake factory, which basically you can’t leave your front door anywhere without running into one now. This street runs through Downtown Fort Lauderdale and all the way to the beach, it is a nice walk, plenty to do and look at.
BOATING
Fort Lauderdale itself is the yachting capital of America, if you like huge boats and small ones too, you will find this place very interesting I don’t think I have ever seen so many multi-million dollar boats in one area before. Fort Lauderdale is also known as the Venice of America because it has so many little waterways you can boat down through the city.
SPORTS
As far as thing to do there you have a lot of water sports, minus surfing (which people claim is possible, but I have yet to see much of it) also keep in mind kiteboarding is a wintertime sport there, the wind there in the summer isn’t strong enough. Also surprisingly I found great trail riding at Markham Park 15 minutes south east of the city. You have great running right by the beach and best of all there is an amazing Olympic size swimming pool facility there too. If you our a triathlete you might find Fort Lauderdale a great wintertime training spot.
Here is an ariel shot of the Olympic swimming facility there are a couple lap pools and one deep water diving pool. It is only 4 dollars a day to swim there. They have had many Olympians swim and train here. The pools are outside and very sweet! Access to these pools almost make me want to stay living here.
BEACH
Finally the most important thing in Florida, the beaches. I found Fort Lauderdale to be one of the nicest, cleanest and overall good looking beaches that I have been to in Florida. There are palm trees all over and nice clean sand, much nicer than Miami beach in my opinion. Another thing that makes the beach unique here is it isn’t all covered in rental condos like rest of the florida beaches are. If you ever drive down to Miami beach then you know what I am talking about. You can’t see the beaches there unless you get out of your car and walk behind the hotels and condos, which cover the beach front property. I guess you can look at this as good or bad thing because in Fort Lauderdale the beach is closer to road so you will have traffic driving by, but it never bothered me.
So overall I found Fort Lauderdale a enjoyable place to live and visit. Plenty to do and even if your an athlete you will find more then just jet skiing as an activity. But like I said I’m starting to think about long term more then just a few months, which means it is time for me to move on and find a place I want to stay for awhile.
So I can only think of a couple places I would want to stay for more than a few months and they are all mostly on the West Coast……this means one thing to me, I have one long cross country drive to get started!
