About

Dead alligators on the road (or six-foot live ones next to the house where you’re swimming). Snakes. More oranges than you could ever imagine, all being carted in large trucks on rural roads. Hurricanes. The smell of swamps. Palm trees and sweltering heat. It all seemed fascinating to us–different and more wild west than the busy but standardized suburbs we had lived in for many years in the Washington, D.C., area.

Florida Culture and family have now lived in the Sunshine State for more than six years, with time in both Central Florida (Lakeland) and Southwestern Florida in the Gulf Coast area (Bradenton/Sarasota).

Florida Culture is a journalist with 17+ years of experience writing about the funeral service business, immigration, agriculture, ophthalmology and other medical specialities, and local news for both community newspapers and trade publications. Florida Culture is a full-time freelance writer/editor/English as a second language teacher.

Florida Culture was the weekly columnist for Central Florida’s Agri-Leader, an agricultural newspaper geared toward consumers and published by the newspaper Highlands Today in Highlands County, until the newspaper ceased publication in 2015. Her work has been published in US News and World Report, The Huffington Post, Today.com, Newsday, Visit Florida, and Edible Sarasota. She also does health writing for physician publications and consumer sites such as Everyday Health and the health site for US News and World Report (health.usnews.com), where her focus is diabetes. To discuss freelance travel, health, and food writing work, email vcaceres28@gmail.com.

Follow Florida Culture on Twitter at @FloridaCulture; Instagram at @florida_culture, and on Facebook at Florida Culture Blogger.

Thanks for visiting, and keep reading.

Sunset on Bradenton Beach, Florida.

Another lovely day with my friends in Florida…safely spotted at the park Gatorland in Orlando!