APALACHICOLA -- It was late, the wine had been mostly dispatched, and the candles had begun to weep crazily across the patio table. It was end-of-the-party conversation, desultory and rambling, about our favorite places. Favorite place in Florida, my husband mused. That's easy, St. George Island. Everyone but me looked at him blankly.

Finishing each other's sentences, we painted the picture: Some of the darkest, most star-filled skies in the continental United States, partly because of light restrictions to aid the nesting loggerhead sea turtles. Paved bike paths the length of the island, a gorgeous and underpopulated state park beach, flounder fishing off the Bob Sikes Cut. There's the charming historic port of nearby Apalachicola, founded by 19th century cotton and lumber barons, with its Georgian and Victorian manses and its oyster bars. It was an idle comment: We should all go sometime.

Then the e-mails started. Were we serious? How expensive would it be? Could we find a house big enough for all of us?

Thus, the first week in May, five families loaded up five cars with beach essentials. For some this meant kites and sand toys, for others long-deferred paperbacks and quality chocolate. In a house called Afternoon Delight (the Starland Vocal Band hit featured prominently on our iPod play lists), we spent four unforgettable days on Florida's Forgotten Coast.

The Forgotten Coast, about a five-hour drive from St. Petersburg, is bounded on the west by Mexico Beach and on the east by St. Marks. From west to east, it includes the communities of St. Joe Beach and Port St. Joe, Simmons Bayou, Cape San Blas, Indian Pass, Apalachicola, St. George Island, Eastpoint, Carrabelle, Ochlockonee Bay and Panacea. The area is served by U.S. 98, a poky and picturesque roadway that stretches for about 250 miles along the northwest Florida Panhandle coast.

Rolling dunes, miles of white sand dotted with perfect sand dollars and hardly another person in sight. But the area does not offer everything to everyone. There are no multiplexes or amusement parks, few malls, even fewer fast food restaurants. High season here is very different from that in the rest of coastal Florida. It stays cooler here than elsewhere on the Gulf, making it a little nippy in the winter and more than tolerable in the summer.

THE BIG TIME

Summer is peak, with rental prices jumping accordingly on beach houses on St. George and hotel rooms in Apalachicola. Still, the area's overambitious real estate scramble of a few years back means that there are a lot of vacancies and some deals to be had.

Before the Forgotten Coast was collectively overlooked, Apalach (that's what the locals call it) was Big Time. Established in the early 1800s, it initially provided the South's cotton plantations an accessible port. The 300-mile Apalachicola River made this an ideal place to collect cotton for transport to mills in New England and overseas to lace manufacturing centers in Western Europe.

Cotton warehouses were erected to house and bale the Old South's most successful crop -- at one point the town boasted 43 warehouses, making it the third-largest cotton port on the Gulf Coast (behind Mobile and New Orleans). After that, it was sponge diving, timber and turpentine from slash pines that kept the region afloat, followed by the St. Joe Co.'s paper mill. St. Joe has turned its attentions toward developing its massive landholdings in this area to environmentally conscious residential and resort communities.

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