About Lakeland

Located halfway between Tampa and Orlando on Interstate 4, Lakeland is just a short drive away from all of the theme parks, professional sports teams and cultural institutions each city has to offer. However, Lakeland has a charm all its own that makes it quite unlike its larger, more famous neighbors. Architecture, gardens and lakefront parks are just a few of the attractions awaiting those who visit. For instance, Hollis Gardens is a botanical garden that prides itself on its recreations of every type of Floridian ecosystem, while the campus of Florida Southern College was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and is considered his largest single installation. The Polk Museum of Art is home to collections of pre-Columbian art and the work of 19th- and 20th-century American artists, as well as a sculpture garden.

Lakeland is also home to attractions that tend towards the exciting and the quirky. Travelers along I-4 are well familiar with the landmark for Fantasy of Flight – a plane standing on its nose with a dummy dangling from one wing. Fantasy of Flight is dedicated to displaying a collection of vintage aircraft in a three hundred acre park and offers seasonal biplane rides and hot air balloon excursions. Sun 'n Fun Fly-In is another of Lakeland's aviation-oriented attractions, drawing tens of thousands of aviators for a week-long fiesta of planes, air shows and educational workshops.