Amelia Island, Fl
If you're more familiar with the Florida of whitewashed high-rises and endless strip malls along Route 1, you might be surprised to find that much of the coastline is still relatively unspoiled. Of course it helps to know where to look.

Amelia Island, located at the very tip of the Atlantic coast barrier islands that begin in North Carolina and run south, is such a place. Most of the land here has been protected, and it is home to a great many indigenous species of flora and fauna that once flourished all over the state but now can only find refuge here. Because it is Florida, there has been some development, although not on the scale that might be found elsewhere. What can be found, however, are 13 miles of pristine Florida beaches, moss-covered oaks and plenty of over the top golf courses.

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Boca Raton, Fl
From its humble beginnings as a community for itinerant workers on the East Coast Railway and orange pickers, to its heady days as a fashionable 1920s resort, Boca Raton has always lived in the shadow of Palm Beach. When Addison Mizner, society architect and builder of more than 40 Palm Beach mansions, decided to develop the area with the backing of many of his wealthy patrons, he wanted to rival the opulence of that millionaire community 28 miles to the north. When the stock market crashed in 1929, Mizner and his dreams crashed along with it, leaving behind many magnificent homes but few people to live in them.

One of Mizner's grandest projects for Boca was the creation of The Cloister Inn, a vast, slightly over-the-top hotel done in his signature quasi-Moorish style. It opened in 1926 at a cost of $1.25 million and, at the time, was the most expensive 100-room hotel ever built. Today the 356-acre hotel has been rechristened the Boca Raton Resort & Club and attracts the kind of big spenders that Mizner had originally envisioned would fill the place. Right on the water, the hotel combines the glamour of the Jazz Age with the conveniences of modern life.

Current owner H. Wayne Huizenga, the former chief executive of Blockbuster -- and, with a net worth estimated at $2.2 billion, bought the hotel in 1997. In recent years, a new $10 million Tennis & Fitness Center, a $6.5 million renovation and reconstruction of the Resort golf Course and a new $40 million meeting and conference facility named for Mizner have been added to the property.

If you want loud, then South Beach, Miami is the place to go. Located in the shadows of the great wedding-cake resorts such as the Eden Roc and the Fountainbleau, South Beach, or SoBe, is one of the hippest, most hedonistic neighborhoods in the world.

A quick drive down Collins or Ocean Avenues--assuming the traffic isn't too bad--would suggest that the only people who live here are models with tight abdominal muscles and celebrities with time on their hands. Here, it's all about looks and fun; the day starts slowly on the beach and then things get going at night, when all of SoBe seems like one big party.

The eye of this nightly storm is invariably the Delano Hotel, jutting out into the sky like a beacon of cool. At the same time, though, the Delano is actually a surprisingly good hotel, disproving the general theory that just because the people working behind the desk are cute means that they're stupid or unprofessional. The rooms are white and elegant, the views of the ocean spectacular, and the guests famous--or just look that way.

Owned by hotelier and taste-maker Ian Schrager, it has been the leading hotel in SoBe since 1995 and, even though plenty of other copycat boutique hotels have opened up since, the Delano, and its restaurant The Blue Door and lobby bar, the Rose Bar, is the destination of choice for the beautiful people.

If you prefer a more mellow visit to Miami, there is the Wyndham Grand Bay Hotel in , which is one of the city's upscale bedroom communities. Located right on the marina, the 12-story pyramidal Grand Bay is like a fine cigar--layer after layer of rich, aromatic leaves rolled together perfectly--that makes you feel rich and contented.
Where to stay:
Delano Hotel
South Beach, Florida
Rooms begin at $245 per night.
Phone: (305) 672-2000 

Wyndham Grand Bay Hotel
Coconut Grove, Florida
Rooms begin at $179 per night.
Phone: (305) 858-9600
to eat: Norman's, The Palm
What to do: Cruise Ocean Drive, play volleyball, take in a Dolphins game, stay out late and smoke a real Cuban cigar

But that was still in the future. For years, the west coast of Florida was like the dark side of the moon. It wasn't until 1926 that the area came into its own, when a highway connecting Naples to Tampa and Miami, at the time the two largest cities in the state, was built. Although Naples, like many other speculative developments in Florida, suffered a dip in the market during the Depression, the city took off after World War II, attracting both seasonal and year-round residents, who came for the warm weather, blue waters and less hurricane-prone charms of the Gulf Coast.

Because it is such a strongly residential community, it has never made as much of an effort to create the kind of tourist industry that other cities in Florida have. One of the drawbacks to the area is that everything is private and very exclusive, so most visitors don't have access to the beaches or golf courses. For some reason--although the reasons may lay anywhere from the fact that elderly people, who make up a large percentage of the year-round population, like softer, blander food to the fact that it's hard to keep a restaurant going in a seasonal resort community--there are also surprisingly few good places to eat out in Palm Beach.