To round out the series, here are the final 3 Wonders of the Panhandle: Wakulla Springs, the Suwannee River, and the state capital Tallahassee.

6. Wakulla Springs

Wakulla Springs

The signs you see everywhere at Wakulla Springs proudly state that it is one of the largest and deepest freshwater springs in the world.  The Spring flows up and out from an underground river at a rate of over 400,000 gallons per minute. While the county government of Wakulla County claims the springs as the largest and deepest in the world, the Weeki Wachee Springs go down to a verified 403 feet, which makes them deeper.

Even so, I’ve been to Wakulla Springs, and it is truly a stunning place, full of quintessential North Florida wildlife and glass-bottom boats to fully appreciate the wonder of the springs. I highly recommend going.

A few famous movies were shot at Wakulla Springs in the 1940s and 1950s: two of Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan films, “Tarzan’s Secret Treasure” and “Tarzan’s New York Adventure,” and “The Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

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Jeff has started us up by discussing three of the panhandle’s natural wonders.

Although I take exception to his determination that the Emerald Coast, and the world’s most beautiful beaches are bound to the east by Sandestin. Point of fact, Panama City’s ABC affiliate, WMBB TV is so named because of the acronym World’s Most Beautiful Beaches. If you can’t trust the call letters for a TV station, what can you trust?

Insert your favorite line from "Network" here.

By bringing together both the natural and built environments, the wonder that is the Panhandle is readily apparent, so, without further ado…

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Welcome to our list of the Panhandle’s Eight Greatest Wonders.

(It’s a wonder we came up with eight things, am I right?)  Over the next couple of days, each of us will uncover 2 or 3 of the panhandle’s most awe-inspiring features.  So, at nummmmmmberrrrrrrr onnnnnnnnnnne…..

• Although in fancy magazines they rarely make the cut for “Best Beaches of the World,” the beaches stretching from Navarre, FL to Sandestin, FL are truly some of the best you could ever want.  Powder-fine, sugar-white sand extends for miles in this area; forming mountainous high dunes that greet warm Emerald green waters.

Okaloosa Island

There are places in this area where the dunes are so high, driving past them you could mistake yourself as traveling the Sahara, were it not for the sea oats and bright-white sand.  Fancy magazines probably exclude these beaches because of the surrounding environs (“Redneck Riviera“); but I have no doubt that if you carved these high-caliber shores out of North Florida and put them on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, they would be the #1 destination for the rich and famous.

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