Beach on the Cheap
A couple of months ago, MSN.com ran a story called “The 6 Most Affordable Beach Towns in Florida.” They credited Upgraded Points with choosing Cedar Key as the best beachside bargain in the Sunshine State.
Although the article describes Cedar Key as a beach town, there’s no beach around its perimeter, just a collection of gray stones forming a sea wall to separate the island from the gulf.
Since I’m neither a sunbather nor a swimmer, that’s good enough for me. The island is quaint and cute, and it’s surrounded by salt water. When it comes to coastal living, that’s the most important thing so two thumbs up for Cedar Key.
The downtown area has a few restaurants and shops - not many, given its small size, but enough to provide some variety. Enough to fill the time between your tour of the Historical Society Museum and your boat ride to the offshore islands where you’ll learn about the graphite and pencil industry.
Aside from being adorable, with a median home price of $340K, Cedar Key is a bargain for beach bums, which is why it was one of the first places on my list when I started shopping for a coastal retreat.
Here’s why I scratched it off.
It wasn’t that exact video that made me rule out Cedar Key. Idalia, the storm whose flood waters are featured here, hadn’t hit yet when I started my search for the perfect seaside escape.
Back then, it was another film of another storm, I can’t remember which, but the result was the same. Sadly, any hurricane that hits that part of the coast brings storm surges with it, and these inundate Cedar Key’s streets and flood its cute cottages.
No thanks. Not at any price.
To be fair, you can find scary videos of Lanark Village during hurricanes too; you just have to look harder. In other posts, I’ve referenced the frightening images of the community’s shoreside homes when Hurricane Michael hit in 2018. Many of the houses that had been built on the low ground between Highway 98 and the St. George Sound were damaged. Some were destroyed.
But what happened in Lanark proper, the converted barracks at the neighborhood’s core, during that horrendous storm?
Nothing.
Well, almost nothing. Residents did lose electric power for a while, which makes cooking difficult.
Once the storm had passed, these sweet young men brought water, food, and other supplies to the Forgotten Coast to help Michael’s victims.
They were heading to Panama City but got turned around by emergency workers, perhaps because of the damage to Highway 98. Since they couldn’t make their original destination, they stopped at Lanark instead.
Villagers arrived in flip-flops and golf carts to accept a hot dog and a bottle of water, to play the role of gracious hosts to their visitors, to offer thanks, blessings, and even a place to stay on future fishing trips - “I mean it. Bring the kids.”
That’s Lanark. Houses here are half the price of Cedar Key’s, and they’re high and dry, even in the worst of storms. The people are kind. The weather is good.
It’s a bargain, even if it didn’t make MSN’s list.
