Once you discover Paradise, you'll never want to leave!

It's a gorgeous sunny morning on Cabbage Key. I just ordered breakfast. Now I'm waiting patiently for it to start raining money. Fistfuls of dollar bills fall to the ground almost daily around here. You get used to it.

"Some mornings I walk in and the whole floor is covered," says Rob Wells, Jr., who owns Cabbage Key Inn with his wife, Phyllis. "We sweep up the money and give it to charity."

About $65,000 in bills covers every inch of the walls and ceilings of the dining room and bar. Each bill was signed and left behind by a guest who was lucky enough to spend some time on this little piece of paradise nestled just off the coast, about 20 miles northwest of Fort Myers. John F. Kennedy, Jr., autographed one when he was here. So did a fun-loving singer who used to entertain in the bar before anyone knew his name. When he taped the first dollar to the piano, he signed it Jimmy Buffett.

Buffett is the reason as many as 500 visitors come to Cabbage Key almost every day, just to have lunch. Passengers file off tour boats and amble up the dock to the inn. They don't need a menu to place their orders. Buffett sang the praises of Cabbage Key with his hit tune "Cheeseburger in Paradise."

The cheeseburgers are delicious, but Cabbage Key doesn't really turn into paradise until the crowds leave. Then the pace slows, and the 100-acre island again becomes the relaxed sanctuary that has charmed travelers since the 1930s. Rooms in the inn go for around $100 a night, but it's worth spending a little more for one of the six cottages. Settle in to the Rinehart Cottage, and you can pretend the whole island is yours.

Simple pleasures abound. Hike the nature trail, and inhale the heavenly aroma of night-blooming cereus. Climb the stairs of the wooden water tower-the tallest structure on the island at 60 feet-to watch a spectacular sunset.

If you're game for more sightseeing, rent a skiff at the dock ($55 for a whole day, including a beach mat and umbrella), and motor over to Cayo Costa, another nearby island. The trip takes you down a canal through a tunnel of mangroves and delivers you to a deserted, 8-mile-long Florida beach.

Phyllis and Rob are gracious North Carolinian's who've owned the Cabbage Key Inn for almost 30 years. Rob was an administrator at High Point University when he first visited Cabbage Key on a fishing trip. He talked Phyllis into moving to the island with their 2-year-old son, Robert. "I'd never even been on a sailboat before," Phyllis recalls.

Cabbage Key Inn: P.O. Box 200, Pineland, FL 33945; (239) 283-2278  Getting there: It's a 10-minute water taxi ride ($30) from Pineland Marina. just off Cape Coral, Fl. The inn runs the only restaurant on the island. Don't miss the grouper or the stone crab claws when they're in season!

This is truly one fo those secret Florida hide-a-ways that the locals like to keep to themselves!