I recently visited South Padre Island and the RGV, and as a former Floridian I thought I’d share a few impressions. Driving south on US-59 through the brush country, I was greeted in Harlingen by a mature queen palm. Living in Houston, where there are virtually none, and having not seen any on the drive down, it immediately caught my attention. About a mile later I spotted a royal poinciana, and another mile after that a mature royal palm. I was surprised by how abruptly the landscape transitioned into something that felt tropical. Along the east coast, that change is much more gradual. Before long I was seeing Australian pines, ficus, and many of the plants I regularly saw in Central Florida that are absent around Houston. Overall, South Padre Island and the RGV really impressed me. South Padre, in particular, felt genuinely tropical, with a warm, humid sea breeze very reminiscent of South Florida. In terms of vegetation, I’d say it felt slightly more tropical than coastal Volusia County but a bit less so than Brevard County. On Florida’s Gulf Coast, the closest comparison that came to mind was Dunedin, Tarpon Springs, or perhaps South Tampa—if you mentally removed the coconuts, Veitchia, and other tropicals that were largely wiped out in Texas by the 2021 freeze. The palm scene was better than I expected. I would’ve loved to see a few coconut palms, but I didn’t come across any. Hopefully they’ll make a comeback as the climate allows. More generally, we really enjoyed the area and will definitely be back. It was a pleasant surprise to find a corner of Texas that, in many ways, felt so much like Florida.