Travel

Free orange juice will continue to flow at Florida interstate welcome centers while state citrus officials adjust to a pending 10 percent legislative budget cut for their promotional efforts.The Florida Citrus Commission on Thursday will be asked to approve a $225,000 contract with Visit Florida about the welcome-center refreshment, a reduction of $25,000 from the past.

A record 6.6 million Floridians are expected to crowd roads, airports and seaports for trips of 50 miles or more during the end-of-year holidays, according to the AAA auto club.

Getting a big holiday meal on the table can be stressful for the cook (see “The Bear,” Season two, Episode six.) But for guests, just getting to the table also can be difficult, and there’s no Butterball hotline for harried travelers.The number of people traveling 50 miles (80 kilometers) or more from home for Thanksgiving is expected to reach 55.4 million this week, a slight increase over last year, according to AAA projections.

This year’s holiday travel forecast of three million Floridians on the road is a 3% increase over last year; the second highest since 2001.

The Lee County Port Authority announced Monday that Spirit Airlines will inaugurate nonstop service between Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, starting Dec. 15.

In my life, I have found myself as a colored, a negro, a Black, an African American, and a person of color. This story is my reflection as a colored girl. Traveling as a colored child was my greatest adventure, while also experiencing unlimited inconveniences. The colored travel experience during Jim Crow could involve frustration, indignities, and even danger.

More than a dozen new trails have been added to the growing network of more than 500 wildlife viewing sites throughout Florida. Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail

The number of people traveling to Florida during the second quarter of 2023 decreased compared to a year earlier, according to estimates released Wednesday by the state’s tourism-marketing agency.

A much-feared backup of U.S passport applications has smashed into a wall of government bureaucracy as worldwide travel rebounds toward record pre-pandemic levels — with too few humans to handle the load. The result, say aspiring travelers in the U.S. and around the world, is a maddening pre-travel purgatory defined, at best, by costly uncertainty.

Despite higher costs for air travel and hotels, AAA projects holiday travel will be 3 percent higher than a record total set last year in Florida and 8 percent higher than over the same period in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. The auto club estimates more than 2.81 million Floridians will travel at least 50 miles from Friday through July 4.