Cathy Salustri is the Arts & Entertainment editor at Creative Loafing Tampa. She spent twelve years at Gabber Newspaper, where she penned an opinion column, Hard Candy, and wrote a monthly in-state travel piece. Cathy teaches digital photography and lectures about Florida around the state and at Eckerd College’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). She is the author of Backroads of Paradise: A Journey to Rediscover Old Florida (University Press of Florida). In the 1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project sent mostly anonymous writers, but also Zora Neale Hurston and Stetson Kennedy to Florida to reveal its splendor to the world. The FWP and the State of Florida jointly published the results as Florida: A Guide to the Southernmost State, which included twenty-two driving tours of the state’s main roads. Retracing the original routes in the Guide, Salustri rekindles our notions of paradise by bringing a modern eye to the historic travelogues. Her travel narrative, following what are now backroads and scenic routes, guides armchair travelers and road warriors alike to historic sites, natural wonders, and notable man-made attractions—comparing the past views with the present landscape and commenting on the changes, some barely noticeable, others extreme, along the way.
