MOON HANDBOOKS FLORIDA GULF COAST

Local writer Laura Reiley knows the top ways to explore the Sunshine State's best-kept secret. Her firsthand experience and honest insight will show you the difference between visiting the Florida Gulf Coast and knowing it.

Moon Handbooks Florida Gulf Coast
1st Edition
Laura Reiley
ISBN 1-56691-571-6
$17.95
Purchase here through Amazon.com or visit Booksense.com to find your local independent bookseller.

Laura Reiley began her career as a food critic, for all the right reasons. Not, as her brother claimed, because it combined her two favorite things: eating and criticizing. Instead, she came to write about eating because it is among the most democratic of all human activities, the others being either too scatological, too maudlin, or too ribald to discuss with any regularity in print.
  So it is with travel. More inclusive than sports, more interesting than weather, travel is the universal solvent—loosening the tongues of total strangers. And Florida’s wild and wooly Gulf Coast is the kind of destination that really gets people talking. Staunch and vociferous advocates describe the geniality of the Gulf Coast’s people, its abundant natural beauty, its warm waters and world-class beaches, and its casual but cosmopolitan cultural amenities. But here’s the kicker: the Gulf Coast is still the Sunshine State’s best-kept secret.
  Two years ago, Reiley moved to the Gulf Coast, where she lives with her husband, a psychologist; her daughter, a nine-year-old; and her dog, a schnoodle. She moved without boating experience, woefully ignorant of manatee and gator habits, and fairly incompetent at baiting a hook. But she learned. She quickly became sailing-certified, figured out how to wet a line with aplomb, caught her share of black grouper and redfish, bought a kayak, and now gives the big gators in her pond nary a backward glance. But it’s been through researching and writing Moon Handbooks Florida Gulf Coast that Reiley has been transformed from eager newcomer to proud Floridian.
  Laura Reiley can be contacted at lreiley@tampabay.rr.com.

Other travel guides authored by Laura Reiley:
Moon Walt Disney World & Orlando