Chad Gallivanter

Lakeland, Florida is easy to overlook if you only see it from Interstate 4. Most people pass the exits on their way to Tampa or Orlando and assume they already know the place. 

But once you slow down and spend time here, a very different picture starts to emerge. 

In this episode of The Gallivanter Podcast, Chad explores ten clues that reveal why Lakeland might quietly be one of the most interesting small cities in Central Florida. 

The journey begins with the lakes that shaped the city’s layout and the swans that have becom...

Most people visit Sanford, Florida the same way. 

They stroll along First Street, enjoy a drink or dinner downtown, and walk the Riverwalk beside Lake Monroe. It’s an easy place to spend an afternoon, and one of the most charming historic districts in Central Florida. 

But Sanford’s story runs much deeper than most visitors realize. 

Long before Orlando became the center of the region, Sanford was a transportation hub along the St. Johns River. Steamboats once docked along the same shoreline where people gather today for sunsets. 

European immigrants arrived...

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, with mineral-rich soil and open land shaping the conditions that made large-scale horse operations possible. That foundation was already in place. 

Then came the World Equestrian Center. 

In this episode, we look...

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 the glass-bottom boat turned that natural wonder into a national sensation. But the story of Silver Springs is bigger than a famous attraction. 

In this first epis...

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 district of restaurants, shops, and restored landmarks that tell the story of how this town grew. Along the way we admire the beautifully rest...

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 Arrivas House, part of St. Augustine’s growing historic preservation movement as the city prepared for its 400th anniversary. 

From the balcony above the narrow...

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.

And from a small schoolhouse in Daytona, she helped reshape education and civil rights in the 20th century.

In...

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 twentieth century, Ormond Beach became the center of the fastest sport on earth. Early automobile pioneers arrived with experimental machines and tur...

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 grid that replaced Old Town, walk the commercial spine that still anchors daily life, and look at how tourism, preservation, and local business intersect on a barrier islan...

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, but like much of Florida’s early infrastructure, the story is more complicated than the dates on the plaque. Union troops occupied the unfinished fort in 1862. Confederate forces had brie...

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 River, built for harbor control, trade, and defense. Its layout reflected maritime priorities, not tourism or rail commerce. 

By the early nineteenth century, shifting channels, marsh constraints, and the growing importance of...

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 forces that transformed the rest of Florida into something louder, faster, and more uniform.

This series looks at Amelia Island and Fernandina Beach the way a hist...

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 located, what they do well, when lines tend to form, and what to order if it’s your first visit.

This is a guide to navigating breakfast in Americ...

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 certain businesses ended up here in the first place, and how DeLand balances its small-town core with a steady undercurrent of reinvention. From downtown blocks and historic corrid...

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, and very different personalities, depending on what you’re hunting for and how you like to browse.

We move around the city, talk about what each stop actually does well, and share pr...

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 Dora visit better, whether you’re visiting for the first time or coming back for another weekend.

Along the way, we talk about...

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 community that protects and teaches its history one demonstration at a time. 

We explore where the event began in the late 1970s, why it has grown into the Fort Christmas Historical So...

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 of Lights is not the flashiest display, and it was never meant to be. Its power comes from something older, something rooted in the city’s long tradition of using light to ma...

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 empire that vanished overnight, and the reinvention that followed. You’ll hear how Rollins College shaped national conversations, why a world-class Tiffany collection ended up in a small Southern town, and how...

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 answer: What happened to this town?

Over the course of one rainy day, he traces the layers that still define the city...

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 is off limits. The restrooms are closed. A single orange portable toilet stands in for federal infrastructure.

From the rough, rutted loop of Black Point Wildlife Drive to the weathered steps of the obse...

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 ever pretending to be somewhere else. You’ll walk the centuries-old streets of St. Augustine during Nights of Lights and wander under silk dragons at the As...