USA: Hollywood Beach, Florida

November 2025

As I stood on the cold, rainy platform of the DC metro at Reagan National Airport, I kept reflecting on Hollywood Beach. I had just left there - now I had to face the reality of winter in the Northeast after a three year absence.

After the cruise from Barcelona [see: Transatlantic Cruise], I ended up staying in the Port Everglades area for a couple of days - partly to transition from the cruise and the long journey, and partly because plane tickets were punishingly expensive outside of midweek. I ended up in Hollywood, Florida (far from the beach) only because I found a cheap and reasonable hotel there . As luck would have it - a friend of PM and DV whom I had met just before the cruise lived in Ft Lauderdale and came to rescue me the day of my arrival. The cruise ship came in at an obscenely early hour and I couldn't check into the hotel room. GS came and we had a nice tour of the area and lunch. Most importantly, he showed me the "Broadwalk" (not Boardwalk) of Hollywood Beach. We enjoyed a lovely stroll up and down before he dropped me back to the hotel. I liked it so much, I walked there the next day from downtown Hollywood - it was a hike.

I had not been to Florida in decades, literally. Many people I knew had retired there to escape the cold weather of the north, but they traded freezing days for a sweltering, humid summer. Several gave up and returned to the north - it turned out not to be their long held dream place to retire. Since I lived in Singapore and Jakarta, the heat of a Florida summer never bothered me. What I most took exception to was the "beach effect". As friends have often said - as long as you are a mile or so from the coast, Florida is great. Otherwise.... not really. GS made that very clear in his descriptions of the Fort Lauderdale area.

As I walked along Hollywood Beach I was swept away by how lovely it was. My friends in Bangladesh are very proud that Cox's Bazar Beach is the longest unbroken sand beach in the world. That place has mostly murky water due to the outflow of the Ganges, but if one heads far enough south toward the border with Myanmar - the sand becomes white and the water turns blue. I realize that place is the only true beach in the country, but I often dreamed of taking Bangladeshi friends for a day to South Florida and saying: "this is actually the world's longest beach and it is beautiful all the way around". Cox's Bazar is actually a horrible beach with poor planning and development.

Earlier in the trip I was in Los Angeles with TFR and pondering what it would be like to live in the eternal summer of Southern California. Later, I did the same in South Florida. No cold weather and snow is appealing, but could that be the ONLY metric with which to measure a place to live?

I was happy to be reminded that beautiful vacation spots exist in my own country. Fort Lauderdale Airport is so much more user-friendly than Miami, too.

For the first time I think I wanted to return to Florida - but just to walk along the beach.