Uncovered in 1513 by Spanish Conquistador Juan Ponce de León, Florida has quickly ended up being the worlds most liked tourist vacation spot attracting about 60 million people to the state on a yearly basis. Its cozy weather, pleasant locals and enormous variety of things to do all bring about its number one vacation status.

Until the travelers began coming in, Florida was largely an agricultural state and this is still its 2nd biggest industry today. In addition to a booming cattle harvesting industry Florida creates the majority of citrus fruit in the US. Without a doubt, Florida is known, even today, not only for its amusement parks but for its great quantity of oranges, orange juice being the states recognized beverage. Along with citrus fruit the state is also popular for generating sugar cane, today its third greatest industry. Nowadays it is astonishing to most that, prior to the arrival of travel and leisure, Florida contained mostly cattle fields and swamplands.

The nice and cozy climate, sandy seashores and other actions such as fishing and aquatic sports started to bring in the visitors and lay the building blocks for what was to become the states most significant industry and main economy source. Back in the day of this growth (early to mid 1800s) it was nonetheless only the affluent who could afford a holiday to Florida. That was until American tycoon Henry S. Flagler visited that state in 1878 and recognized the huge prospective Florida could hold to draw in guests from outside the state. He built the Ponce de Leon Hotel in St Augustine in 1885 and then started to develop what is now referred to as Florida East Coast Railway making journey into Florida much simpler and more hassle-free for people from as far away as New York. Flagler went on to build more hotels subsequently improving the states accommodation and allowing for more visitors. In the early 1900s visitors to the Sunshine State increased considerably due to this growth in hotels and railways and then in the 1930s airlines opened up travel schedules to Florida and airports were built in the major cities, again allowing for a boost in tourists.

People arrived in to soak under the sun and the relaxed Florida mindset contributing to the growth of beach towns up and down the coasts. By now many of Florida’s citizens had long identified that tourism had become a fundamental source of bread and butter for them and so they set about earning whatever livings they might from it. Even while the beach villages prospered from all the sun seekers people began to pull visitors further inland with various roadside attractions. However it was in 1963-64 when a certain man took an airplane trip within the state that the rise of Florida tourism as you may know it today really began.

In 1963 Walt Disney was trying to find somewhere to build his fantasy, a bigger and better version of his Disneyland attraction in California. Disneyland didn’t fulfill Walt’s dream just how he planned, only purchasing enough land to construct the actual park it quickly became surrounded by urban life as Los Angeles grew close to it, so this time he knew he required land and plenty of it. At the time central Florida had undeveloped swampland in abundance and when Mr. Disney took that plane flight expense he knew that was the place.

Today Walt Disney World is still considered the greatest theme park on earth and its development was followed by a succession of more world class theme parks such as Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Sea World and Busch Gardens. It is now these attractions that Florida is best known for and between them they gather hundreds of thousands of visitors every day and it was the growth in these attractions that rocketed the once sleepy southern state of Florida into the position of the worlds number one tourist destination. Despite this, there is still an enormous range of activities offered to today’s Florida tourist including (but certainly not limited to) fishing, golf, water sports, space shuttle launches, wildlife, shopping, dining and world class beaches.

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