Beautiful, long, challenging day: New Smyrna to Orlando

1/31/26

Hello from St. Petersburg, Florida! The weather outside is frightful, so I’m staying indoors, writing this post and doing some English tutoring on Cambly.

I’ll write more about my time here later, but I still need to catch you up on my last day of the eastern portion of the Florida Coast to Coast Trail.

It was the most beautiful day of the trail yet, and really fun because it included a lot of animals! I’m including some here, but I also saw a snake (who slithered of the trail too quickly for a pic) and many birds, as always here in Florida. And the weather was perfect, warm and sunny.

Jean, my host in New Smyrna Beach, had told me that there would be goats along the trail. She sent me off with an “approved” snack for them: a bag of asparagus! It was really fun to feed them and spend time with them.

Jean had also told me to expect a gray tabby trail kitty, and she gave me some cat treats to share as well. Sure enough, soon after the goats, I found the kitty waiting patiently on the trail. The kitty seemed more interested in affection than treats (though they did eat the treats!) so I thought that was really sweet.

Later, I passed a swampy area and saw a gator and (not pictured) a big black bird and several turtles.

Then shortly afterward I saw another trailside tortoise, which seems to be a Florida thing.

The plant and tree life was beautiful, too.

I took my time and moseyed along the trail, taking many “basking breaks” on the plentiful benches along the way.

Things did get a bit challenging towards the end of the day, though. I had planned to ride about 38 miles (61 km) which was to be the longest of my “trail days” on this journey. I was proud of myself to do so, even though this distance would be considered quite mild by the standards of many bike tourers, who easily travel 60-80 miles in a day.

But I started feeling uneasy about the Warmshowers host who had offered to host me for the night. Although several days earlier he had confirmed that he and his wife could host me—and gave me their address, which was conveniently less than two blocks off the trail—he had stopped replying to my texts two days earlier. I had written to confirm a few things, and my phone indicated that he had read the texts, but had not replied. I had started to feel a little nervous.

He had stopped replying after I had mentioned my vegan diet. I had sent a text indicating that while I didn’t necessarily expect hosts to feed me, some did offer, and so I thought I should mention my dietary restrictions.

I had thus started to spin a story in my head that this couple might be very politically conservative, and perhaps they thought my vegan diet was a sign that I was “not one of them.” I remembered, a few years ago, reading a Warmshowers review from a solo male traveler about staying with a solo male host. (I should mention that from all my personal experiences, as well as reviews I have read on the site, the following is an extremely rare situation. But for obvious reasons, it stood out to me.) Apparently, the host had asked the traveler about his political views. The traveler briefly responded, but requested that they not talk about politics. The host—whose views were opposed to the traveler’s—then “trapped” the guest in his living room for several hours while delivering an impassioned political rant, complete with yelling and pacing across the floor.

Was something like this about to happen to me?? Assuming the host was even still available?

But… I needed a place to stay. And I was now about half an hour away. Maybe I was just imagining things?

I sat down at a rest area and considered my options.

I really didn’t want to pay for a hotel for the night, nor did I want to ride however much farther I would need in order to get to one. But to assess my options, I did search on Google Maps to see where the closest hotels were. I found one four additional miles away, and the pricing was not outrageous. I figured this could be my backup plan.

Then I thought I would look up the host’s Warmshowers profile again, to get more of a feel for him. I had recalled that his profile was quite sparse, and he had only a few very short (but positive) reviews. For this reason, I had been a bit hesitant to even request a night with him in the first place, but his location was perfect for my needs, so I had taken the risk.

But I was shocked to discover that now, when I went to review his profile, Warmshowers indicated that his listing had been deleted!

What??

Wow.

Now there would be no potential accountability of a bad review if he/they were to do anything inappropriate.

Now what?

I knew I had a backup plan, but I still wondered if I were just being paranoid.

I decided to try texting him one more time:

“Hey there, I think I should be arriving in about half an hour. Does this still work for you? (I just checked your WS account, and it looks like it’s deleted?)”

Then I got back on the trail. My stomach felt tight, and my mind alternated between “It’s probably totally fine!” and “I really need to be careful and protect myself.”

A few minutes later, he replied:

“OK! I am home.”

And he dropped a pin on the map showing his location, which matched the address I had.

What the….??? No mention or explanation of his two days of radio silence, nor his Warmshowers account status?

I made the decision to press on.

However, having now resigned myself to paying for a hotel anyway, I thought of a silver lining:

Initially, I had hoped to take the Sun Rail commuter rail from near this host’s house the following morning, to get back into Orlando without having to bike another 30ish miles (48 km) about half of which would have been in nasty Orlando-metro traffic. But I wasn’t going to be able to do that, because the Sun Rail only runs on weekdays, and it was now Friday afternoon.

I now realized, though, that if I were willing to bike even farther, I could take the Sun Rail this evening, and get a hotel in Orlando.

This seemed like the best option. The adrenaline from my confusion and fear fueled me on for the next several miles, as I pedaled toward the Sanford station, about ten miles away.

Amazingly, though, I stopped at one point to check that I was on the correct route, and realized that the DeBary station was about 100 yards away from my current location!

The train only ran about once an hour at this time of day… and I happened to see one pulling in right then. Doh!! I was going to have to wait another hour. But it still seemed worth it to rest for an hour at the station, while finding a new Orlando hotel and booking a reservation.

I made my way over, and got scolded by a platform attendant to walk my bike on the platform, not ride. I hopped off… and then found out from a train attendant that the train was having a 6-minute layover there!

What a miracle!

That attendant helped me to buy a ticket at the machine, and waited patiently while I disassembled the rig to get it onto the train. He showed me a bike space to store it… and I got seated just in time for the train to depart.

From my seat, I hurriedly looked up hotels, and booked one just outside of Winter Park, just northeast of Orlando. Then I texted my would-be host to let him know I would not be coming. (This was already about an hour after our earlier exchange):

“On second thought, I realized I wasn’t feeling entirely comfortable with all this, so I decided to press on and just get a hotel for the night. Thanks for your offer, though, and all the best to you!”

I held my breath a bit, fearing some sort of tirade like the one I received from a fellow Amtrak passenger back in April.

To my relief, instead his reply was, “Okay, no problem. We’re still here if you change your mind. Have a safe ride.”

Whew! My secondary guess about his behavior had been that he simply had very bad interpersonal/communication skills. As I had been debating simply staying there anyway, my gut told me the odds were about 50-50 of this. However, I didn’t like those odds. So, despite the extra cost and stress, I’m glad I prioritized my safety. But I still felt a little better about the world, receiving his reply.

(Oh, and weirdly, a day or two later I looked up his profile again from my laptop, not my phone, and it was there, not deleted! Could that have been simply a particularly poorly timed technical glitch??)

The bummer was that the hotel room was not non-smoking, so all my clothes and belongings ended up soaking in the smell of stale cigarette smoke, which took several days to dissipate.

Still, I was proud of myself for 1) having prioritized my safety; 2) having enjoyed the Sun Rail after all, rather than having a nasty 30-mile bike ride the following day; and 3) having biked 48.5 miles in one day (77 km)… a full ten miles more than what I thought had been my ambitious plan!

And, on the way to the hotel, I got to see this beautiful sunset.

The following day, I biked over to the Orlando Warmshowers hosts I would be staying with for the next two nights, before my trip to St. Petersburg.

This week of bike touring was challenging and rewarding. More to come on the Gulf Coast!

—

Want to support my vision financially? You can make a one-time or monthly contribution, or even become a Fairy Godfunder! (Heartfelt thanks to my patrons, contributors, and godfunders!)

Want to be notified of future blog posts? Use the green “sign up” button to subscribe!