Enjoy the Ride with Holland the Pup: Florida’s Forgotten Coast and Florida’s Emerald Coast

Hey everyone, it’s Holland the Pup here checking in from Denver, Colorado! My human dad, Traveling Food Dude, and I just finished an interview on the Rootless Living podcast where we chatted about our somewhat nomadic lifestyle  (our latest trip was to the Forgotten Coast of Florida) over the past three years and it gave me the itch to start sharing my journey with you, the fans of Dog O’Day.

As you might recall, I was adopted from the Humane Society of Tampa Bay back in 2015 (when I was just two years old) and in 2018 my dad sold everything in his downtown Tampa apartment and bought an Airstream travel trailer so we could go travel around the world.

My dad kept telling me we were going to have lots of adventures on this crazy journey of ours but I had no idea of how many cool places we would see, or the nice people we would meet, or the other wonderful doggos that I would get to play with, or all the tasty treats I would get to enjoy.

We left Tampa in September of 2018 heading West towards Austin, Texas for a travel conference. The car ride was so much fun because I got to stick my head out the window, letting my ears flop in the wind and getting to smell all the smells!

Holland the Pup shares her love for the forgotten coast in her latest column.

For our first night we stayed at the Dr. Julian G. Bruce St. George Island State Park which was really close to Apalachicola, an old Florida fishing village that is super cute and has lots of character.

Apalachicola is famous for oysters (even the local radio station is named after oysters!) and it’s also a very dog-friendly town so it’s not surprising we found a business that combined local oysters and doggy treats! OysterBones is a local pet boutique and pet bakery where they make homemade dog treats out of crushed up oyster shells! I thought I would find some interesting eats as we set off to travel around the world, but I had no clue that I would get to try dog treats made from oyster shells! We picked up a couple small bags of OysterBones and took it to the

I wish we could have stayed in Apalachicola longer (it really is a hidden gem and no wonder it’s called Florida’s Forgotten Coast), but we had to keep heading West. That night we stayed at the dog-friendly Santa Rosa RV Resort in Navarre, Florida.

Now, if you’ve never been to the Panhandle of Florida, you’re missing out! This area of Florida has some of the best beaches and the water is such a beautiful color they call this the Emerald Coast. Well we covered a lot of ground during our first two days on the road, but it was time to rest up before we ventured into Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana! More on that to come.

Thanks for being a part of my journey and until next time, enjoy the ride!