I'm sort of projecting (I've been here most of my life, I got tired of it, now regaining appreciation for Florida the last few years), but I've also noticed others (not you) don't realize there's more to Florida than most people realize.

I grew up in South Florida (not a native), and my experience of strip malls and ever widening highways is: if there was a state below Florida, that's where the desperate and unrooted migrants would have kept driving to.

I spent my childhood fishing in a swimsuit every day I could. I loved it. But as an adult, any south of Ocala and east of Gainesville is a cultural wasteland (with cutouts for Miami and Tampa).