Chad Gallivanter

Ocala was horse country long before anyone had heard of the World Equestrian Center.  For decades, Marion County built its reputation quietly. Thoroughbred farms spread across rolling pastureland. Trainers, breeders, and veterinarians developed a network that made this part of Florida one of the most important centers for horse breeding in the United States.  The landscape itself played a role, wi...

Before Ocala was known for horses, farms, or quiet historic streets, one place had already put this part of Florida on the map.  Silver Springs was one of the earliest tourist attractions in the United States.  Long before theme parks defined Central Florida tourism, visitors traveled here to see water so clear that fish, turtles, and submerged trees appeared suspended in midair.  The invention of...

Ocala is often described in simple terms.  Horse country. A gateway to the springs. A place travelers pass through on the way to somewhere else.  But spend a little time here and the picture becomes more complicated.  In this episode of the Gallivanter Podcast, Chad takes a closer look at the city itself.  The walk begins around the historic square in downtown Ocala, where the courthouse anchors a...

One afternoon in March of 1963, a crowd gathered on St. George Street in St. Augustine and looked up toward a balcony.  Standing there was the Vice President of the United States. Not a president yet. Not the architect of the Civil Rights Act. Just Lyndon B. Johnson, visiting America’s oldest city for what seemed, on the surface, like a ceremonial stop.  Johnson had come to dedicate the restored A...

In 1904 a woman arrived in Daytona Beach with almost nothing. Just $1.50… faith… and an idea. That woman was Mary McLeod Bethune , and what she built would become one of the most important historically Black universities in the United States. But the story is even bigger than that. Bethune advised presidents. She organized one of the most influential networks of Black women in American history. An...

Ormond Beach has a habit of hiding its story in plain sight.  Most visitors know it as a quiet coastal town just north of Daytona Beach. A stretch of sand. A scenic drive along the Halifax River. A place where the crowds thin out and the pace slows down.  But long before beach condos and vacation rentals, this shoreline played a very different role in American history.  At the beginning of the twe...

At the northern tip of Amelia Island, where the St. Marys River meets the Atlantic, a massive brick fortress still stands watch.  In this third installment of the Amelia Island series, we step inside Fort Clinch State Park and trace the layered history of Fort Clinch, a 19th-century Third System fort built to guard one of the most strategic harbors in the Southeast.  Construction began in 1847, bu...

Amelia Island is often marketed as a quiet escape on Florida’s northeast coast. But what is it actually like right now?  In this final episode of our Amelia Island series, we step into the present.  From Centre Street in downtown Fernandina Beach to the waterfront, historic neighborhoods, beaches, and state parks, this is a grounded look at what visitors will encounter in 2026.  We revisit the gri...

In this episode of the Gallivanter Podcast, we examine one of the most unusual decisions in Florida town planning.  Fernandina Beach did not simply expand over time. It relocated.  Before Centre Street became the commercial spine visitors recognize today, the original town stood farther north in what is now Old Town Fernandina. Established during the Spanish period, the settlement faced the Amelia...

NOTES FROM AMELIA ISLAND is a four-part narrative series from The Gallivanter Podcast about how places become what they are, not through slogans or branding, but through a long chain of choices, accidents, and absences. Amelia Island sits just off Florida’s northeast coast, close enough to the state’s major historical currents to have been swept up in them, yet curiously untouched by many of the f...

St. Augustine has no shortage of breakfast spots. The hard part is knowing which ones are actually worth your time. In this episode of The Gallivanter Podcast , Chad walks through his go-to breakfast places around St. Augustine, from longtime local institutions to a few quieter favorites that don’t always make the tourist lists. Along the way, you’ll hear practical details about where each spot is...

Orlando has a working antiques scene that most visitors never see, and that’s exactly where this episode goes. In this podcast, Chad walks through ten antique stops across the Orlando area, from long-running dealers and multi-vendor rooms to smaller shops tucked into places you wouldn’t expect. These are not tourist curiosities or weekend pop-ups. They’re places with real inventory, real dealers,...

DeLand doesn’t usually shout for attention. It doesn’t need to. In this episode of The Gallivanter Podcast , Chad walks through ten places that quietly define DeLand, Florida. Not a checklist. Not a hype reel. A practical, ground-level look at the streets, parks, shops, and institutions that shape how this town actually operates day to day. You’ll hear the stories behind longtime landmarks, why ce...

Mount Dora, Florida is one of those towns that rewards repeat visits. In this episode of The Gallivanter Podcast , I’m sharing how we do Mount Dora , ten places we return to again and again, and why they’ve earned that spot for us. This isn’t a definitive travel guide or a rushed one-day itinerary. It’s a personal, experience-driven look at the businesses and spots that consistently make a Mount D...

Step inside Cracker Christmas at Fort Christmas, the annual two day pioneer celebration that transforms a quiet corner of eastern Orange County into one of the most distinctive holiday events in Florida.  This episode takes you beyond the craft tents and demonstrations and into the story behind the event itself, tracing how a reconstructed Second Seminole War fort became the gathering place for a...

For most visitors, Nights of Lights in St. Augustine is a holiday spectacle, a glowing postcard brought to life. But the real story began long before electric bulbs lined the rooftops. This episode traces the deeper history of how St. Augustine marked the holidays across four and a half centuries, from Spanish colonial celebrations to the quieter rituals that carried into the American era. Nights...

Winter Park looks quiet on the surface, but beneath the brick streets and lakeside parks is one of Florida’s most influential cultural cities. This episode takes you beyond the café patios of Park Avenue and into the deeper story of how a small, carefully planned community became a powerhouse of art, architecture, and historic preservation. We explore the city’s origins in the 1880s, the citrus em...

Pigeon Forge is a place most people think they already understand - a blur of neon, traffic, mini golf, dinner shows, and roadside souvenir shops. But beneath all of that? There’s a different story taking shape, one that’s quieter, older, and easier to miss. In this episode, Chad returns to Pigeon Forge for the first time in a couple of years and takes on a simple question with a complicated answe...

When the 2025 government shutdown reached Florida’s Space Coast, it quietly reshaped one of the state’s busiest refuges. In this episode, Chad Gallivanter visits Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, home to spoonbills, manatees, and the shadow of Kennedy Space Center, to document what “open but unstaffed” really looks like. The visitor center is locked behind a chain-link fence. The boardwalk...

Florida doesn’t do winter the way the rest of the country does. It invents its own version. From mangrove lagoons lit by kayaks to entire cities wrapped in white light, the Sunshine State turns December into a story of illumination. On this episode, Chad takes you across a number of unforgettable holiday experiences - the real ones, not the overhyped ones - that show how Florida celebrates without...

Dunedin didn’t build itself around a beach; it built around a street. Main Street. That’s the spine - walkable blocks lined with cafés, boutiques, and bookstores, anchored by the Artisan District and the Pinellas Trail that runs straight through town.  And every spring, TD Ballpark, home of the Toronto Blue Jays, turns baseball into a community celebration that spills well beyond the outfield.  Th...

If you’ve ever wondered how to experience St. Augustine in just one day - and actually do it well - this episode lays out the strategy.  Not the tourist version. The smart one.  We’ll start early, before the trolley crowds and tour buses arrive, tracing a path from the Castillo’s first light to the quiet corners of Uptown and West King. Along the way, we’ll talk about timing - when to see the fort...

Just west of Orlando, there’s a pair of towns that quietly rewrote the script on what small-town Florida could be. Winter Garden and Oakland - two neighboring communities bound by a bike trail and a shared sense of purpose - have managed to preserve their charm while welcoming the future. In this episode, we explore how Winter Garden’s brick-lined downtown became one of the most walkable destinati...

Before Instagram hashtags, before glossy RV commercials, there was a group of ordinary people who packed up their cars, strapped tin cans to the front bumpers, and hit the road in search of sunshine. They called themselves the Tin Can Tourists , and they built a movement that reshaped travel in Florida and across America. In this episode, we trace the unlikely rise of the Tin Can Tourists in the e...

Every October, the rumble of engines and the smell of leather and chrome transform Daytona Beach into the epicenter of biker culture. Biketoberfest isn’t just another motorcycle rally - it’s one of the largest gatherings of riders in the country, bringing hundreds of thousands of people to Florida’s Atlantic coast.  But beyond the roar of Harleys and the rows of custom bikes, there’s a deeper stor...