3 Best Sights in The Lower Gulf Coast, Florida

ECHO is an international Christian nonprofit striving to end world hunger via creative farming. The fascinating 90-minute tour of its working farm takes you through seven simulated tropic-zone gardens and has you tasting leaves, exploring a rain-forest habitat, visiting farm animals, stopping at a simulated Haitian school, seeing urban gardens grown inside tires on rooftops, and learning about ECHO's mission. Although the group is faith based, the guides are far from preachy, and the organization is all-inclusive, equipping and training people regardless of their beliefs.

If you have time, consider also taking the Appropriate Technology Tour. Slightly shorter than the basic farm tour, it's held in a covered facility where you'll see simple but ingenious contraptions that solve everyday problems in the developing world, like pressing seeds and making rope (spoiler alert—one involves a bicycle-powered saw). The ECHO Global Nursery and Gift Shop sells fruit trees and the same seeds ECHO distributes to impoverished farmers in 180 countries. Check the website for tour schedules.

One of Naples's most culturally exciting attractions, the botanical "gardens with latitude" flourish with plants and decorative elements from Florida and other subtropical locales including Asia, Brazil, and the Caribbean. Highlights of the 170 acres include a Children's Garden with a butterfly house, tree house, waterfall, cave, Florida Cracker house, and hidden garden; an infinity water lily pool; an aromatic Enabling Garden with a how-to theme; and a dramatic waterfall feature. A visitor center offers a café, restaurant, and three gardens, including an one with more than 1,000 orchid species and cultivars.

Opened in 1936 by two retired moonshiners from Detroit, this was one of the state's first roadside attractions and remained little changed until 2013, when the family decided to close its doors—and, thus, ending a rich chapter of Florida tourism history—forever. In stepped Florida landscape photographer John Brady, who negotiated a lease with the founding family and transformed the old-style cramped zoological gardens (that once featured Florida panthers, black bears, crocodiles, alligators, and tame Florida deer) into a botanical garden by conserving the flora and fauna following contemporary standards. Now in focus are diverse gardens that include old-growth trees like kapok, banyan, candle nut, egg fruit, plumeria, jaboticaba, mahogany, cashew, avocado, and mango, as well as integrated animal exhibits with tortoises, turtles, smaller alligators, flamingos, and a butterfly garden. The original buildings have been preserved and made into a modern gallery that showcases Brady's photography.