Florida Guide and Deals

Pedal into the sun and shine on the Pinellas Trail with today's Groupon, which gets you a day-long bike rental from Sun West Cyclery. Sun West is a family-owned-and-operated bike shop that rents comfort bikes, a limited number of recumbents and road bikes, and absolutely no bikes outfitted with road spikes and oil dischargers.“Bicycles. They seem harmless…but are they? Mostly yes, they are harmless…if being LAZY is harmless.

When the University of Miami's Lowe Art Museum began in 1952, the school could comfortably display its entire collection in three unused classrooms. Those days are long past. Today, the museum stands as Miami's most comprehensive collection of western and non-western art. The permanent collections feature pieces drawn from across human history, with notable works including Claude Monet's Waterloo Bridge and a recently acquired face mask from the Dan people of Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia, forged from wood, cloth, and fur. A sizable trove of Native American artifacts includes pieces from the Southeast such as a beautifully embroidered bead shoulder bag. Other exhibits include paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and photographs from the Middle Ages through the present, including the Samuel H. Kress Collection of Renaissance and Baroque art, as well as pottery, sculpture, and metalwork from ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, dating from the first millennium BCE through the 4th century CE.

A few miles away, the tower of the 1939 Old Police and Fire Station rises above the street, gazing down on an unusual blend of sleek, depression-era modernism and Mediterranean revival ornateness. Founded in 2003, the Coral Gables Museum Corp. completely renovated the old municipal building. Spanish touches were added—the new Fewell wing and a 5,000-square-foot plaza—and the space was opened in 2011 as a museum dedicated to the civic arts of architecture, urban design, historic and environmental preservation, and sustainable development. Today, it holds regular art and design exhibitions, educational events, and concerts.

The courses take advantage of all the epic challenges a professional sports stadium has to offer, including thigh-searing stairs, sprint-worthy turf, and more push-up spots than you can fathom. Basic Training's experienced, motivating instructors won't make you march in step, salute them, or shave your head, but they will push you hard. They're athletes themselves who know how to help you meet your goals for a 10K, marathon, or pinewood derby. Plus, they'll teach you proper body mechanics and why and how each exercise works.

After meeting at the Beachview Inn starting point and undergoing a training session that frowns upon Segway jousting, your tour group will segue on their Segways to the Ream Wilson trail and follow it to the Clearwater Memorial Causeway to spot a fantastic panorama of the Gulf of Mexico. Once you've snapped a few shots of people smiling, jumping, and balancing Segways on their noses, buzz down the corkscrew to Coachman Park before continuing to historic Harbor Oaks and the Clearwater Beach Walk. Along the way, there's a chance you'll spot manatees, dolphins, stingrays, and wild parrots. After two hours, you'll have covered seven miles worth of sunny landscapes and wildlife.

Shula’s Athletic Club—named for Don Shula, the NFL Hall of Famer who coached the Miami Dolphins to a Super Bowl trophy in 1972—doesn’t find it hard to fill its sprawling 40,000 square feet of space. A cardio room with more than 50 pieces of equipment, a spinning center, weight rooms, fitness-class studios, and basketball courts spread through the facility, luring athletes for independent workouts and personal-training sessions. Dozens of weekly fitness classes range from calorie-burning Zumba workouts and Vinyasa-yoga sessions to spin classes that help students practice for the day they have pedal-powered cars.

The athletic club also accommodates older exercisers with aquatic aerobics and seated Silver Sneakers workouts, and it keeps kids busy with confidence-building youth sports programs. Young legs run over a new 60-yard athletic field or nine lighted tennis courts where kids whack tennis balls and low-flying hot-air balloons with rackets.

Start 2010 with a kick in your pants from yourself using the foot of someone else with today's side deal: for $65, you get a four-week boot camp session at South Florida Fitness Boot Camp. You'll also get 20% off your next session should you choose to return. Each session meets three days a week, with each class lasting about 45 minutes. That's more than two hours of dedicated team fitness per week for a month, about the same amount of time as the average person spends reading cereal boxes.