‘Where in South Hillsborough’ is now ‘Postcards’ PDF Print E-mail
Written by Mitch Traphagen   
Friday, 16 April 2010

 
Do you remember the old-style Florida tourist postcards?  The kind that allowed our neighbors to the north to show off the weird and wonderful things they encountered on vacation in the Sunshine State?  While that kind of postcard may be harder to find today, the weird and the wonderful still exists here — in South Hillsborough, in the Tampa Bay area and across all of Florida.
After a long hiatus, Where in South Hillsborough now returns as ‘Postcards’ — photos that highlight the cool and unusual stuff found only here.  We invite you to enjoy the view and we invite you to participate in guessing where each week’s postcard can be found.  But we have an added challenge:  While there is still much to see in South Hillsborough, Postcards is not limited to our corner of paradise.
Beginning this week, look inside and revel in the cool and the nostalgic — and send us your best guess as to where it can be found.  The email address remains the same:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  If you get it right, we’ll print your name next week.  We might even print your name if you get it wrong.
We also invite you to participate in finding new postcards.  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it us your photographs and you’ll get the photo credit along with a note of thanks.  Keep in mind, however, that we can only print photos you have actually taken and not commercial postcards.
As always, we’ll look forward to hearing from you.

postcards-dinosaurCarl Hiaasen is the author of several dark humor (but hilarious) books set in Florida. The characters are always bizarre and invariably innocent tourists from innocent places like Michigan or Indiana that manage to get caught up in the shenanigans. Millions of readers laugh their way through each page thinking they are reading fiction. They are not. Hiassen is a columnist for the Miami Herald and has spent decades reporting on just how weird things can be in the Sunshine State. Yet somehow in the end when the readers close those books they are left thinking, “I wish I lived there.” Florida has cool stuff and cool (yes, sometimes strange) people. There are hundreds of tourist shops on beaches across the state with photographs to prove it. Florida postcards have a long tradition of giving tourists the opportunity to brag about being a part of it all. Now it is your turn to brag — do you know where in Florida this is? Have you been there? Send your best guess or a good story to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we’ll print your name next week along with the other cool people in the know. Also, send in photos you’ve taken of places you think might make a good postcard in a future edition. For that, too, you’ll get the fame and acclaim.