Very often, when chatting about books with our friends and relatives, we often wind up with agreeing that there are books we would borrow and others we would purchase.  This is particularly the case when it comes to travel guide- books, as usually these books are bought when mulling over a jaunt to some special place or when returning to a much-loved country, state, province or city.

Bruce Hunt’s two excellent guidebooks, Visiting Small-Town Florida-Revised Edition and Florida’s Finest Inns and Bed & Breakfasts, would fall into the latter category.

Both compliment each other, focusing on different and unique aspects of Florida pertaining to unusual towns, as well as distinctive lodging establishments.

Hunt is a native of Florida and he has devoted considerable time to checking out diverse towns around the state. As he mentioned to me in an interview, he is one of those travelers that enjoy venturing off the beaten path places in order to seek out quiet and peaceful towns, where people who don’t even you know wave and smile.

With Visiting Small-Town Florida Revised Edition, Hunt provides a guide to 70 of Florida’s most interesting small towns.

Divided into north, central and south regions, we learn a little about towns with unusual names as Cassadaga, Dunnellon, Yankeetown, Estero, La Belle, Sopchoppy, Ozello, Yeehaw Junction, Matacha, Bokeelia, and several more that probably most of us never knew even existed.

The criteria used to decide which ones to include were basically towns that had a population of less than ten thousand people based on the 2000 census. In fact, as Hunt mentions in his introduction, most of the towns have a population of less than two thousand people.

As you read about these various towns, you will notice that each has a distinct personality and very often they are of some American historical importance. Take for example, Cedar Key- a town that as a history of attracting famous writers and visionaries such as John Muir who concluded his one- thousand- mile walk from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico in Cedar Key in 1867. Muir later went onto California, where he helped establish Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Club.

Complimenting this informative guidebook is Hunt’s Florida’s Finest Inns and Bed & Breakfasts.

The organization is a little more detailed, as the author divides the state into six regions, northeast, central west, central, central east, southwest, and southeast. As Hunt states in his preface, the guidebook is not a collection of all of Florida’s inns and bed and breakfasts. He uses once again clear-cut criteria-the establishment should have at least six rooms, have private baths, be non-smoking, have been in business at least three years, and not be part of chain hotels.

Included are one hundred and thirty five lodging establishments, each unique in their own way- quaint, romantic, eclectic, and haunted. 

Both books endeavour to focus on history, architectur, stories of people and places, as well as the unique personalities and souls of either the town or property.

What makes both of these books appealing is that they don’t fall into the category of the usual dry and bland accounts we are accustomed to from guidebooks of a similar nature. They are very well researched, fascinating, and extremely helpful.  One last comment- these are books you would want to purchase and not borrow.