Walk On Your Life

Posts Tagged ‘Lake’

The Winter Park Scenic Boat Tour, founded in 1938 and located just 15 minutes north of downtown Orlando, is one of these lovely side trips that combine beautiful scenery, a bit of local history, some close-up exposure to local wildlife and vegetation with a relaxing outing in a slow-moving 18-passenger pontoon boat, all complete with expert (and sometimes humorous) narration provided by the boat’s captain.

The tour takes you through 3 lakes: Lake Osceola, Lage Virginia and Lake Maitland. On this gorgeous day, with brilliantly blue skies, the boat whisked us past hundreds of beautiful water-front estates, many of which were originally built in the 1920s and originally sold for $20,000, while fetching between $500,000 and several million in today’s booming Central Florida real estate market. Even boathouses are worth between $30,000 and $40,000.

In Lake Virginia we came up close to the grounds of Rollins College, one of the top rated private liberal arts colleges in the South Eastern United States, founded in 1885 by New England Congregationalists. Rollins College is the oldest recognized college in the state of Florida with a small student body of 1,700 students, housed on a beautiful 70 acre Mediterraean Revival Campus. Our expert captain / tour guide mentioned that tuition at the college is $38,000 and the ratio of students to professors is 12:1.

Lake vacations offer numerous activities for those who have a passion for water fun.  From merely lounging around on the shores to enjoying serious water sports, lake vacations are not for the water shy.

Of course, the most obvious of water sporting enjoyments is swimming.  Many lakes offer competitive swimming events for those who appreciate the benefits of swimming.  Most lakes also offer boating and sailing packages.  Look into daily sailboat and/or powerboat rentals and spend the afternoon on the water, or haul your own boat to the vacation location.  Some lakes even offer paddle boating rentals for those who enjoy a slower pace.  And, more and more locations are adding canoeing, kayaking, and even jet skis to their equipment rentals.

Large and small lakes appeal to the fisherman in many vacation seekers.  Smaller lakes entice the early morning fisherman out onto the water to enjoy the peace and solitude of waiting for that fish to bite.  Larger lakes offer fishing boat rentals for the enjoyment of a pair of fisherman who enjoy the competitiveness of the sport and some larger lakes offer guided fishing charters for both small and large groups.