So what is it actually like?
Clermont sits on actual elevation, Mount Dora runs on antiques and a lighthouse, and the chain of lakes runs through all of it. Cheaper than Orange County and further from everything in it — the commute to downtown Orlando is the whole conversation, and it does not get shorter.
No SunRail station. Nothing on rails reaches Lake County. Everything here is a car.SunRail, sunrail.com/schedules · read 25 August 2026
Where am I, roughly?
and 2 more places on our Lake County map
Take the wheel — open the mapthe same drawing, yours to move around↗Stop 1 of 4Lake County
They call it the Choice of Champions, and the triathletes are not joking.
Real hills, a chain of lakes and the National Training Center — elite swimmers and cyclists train here year-round.
Elite athletes from around the world train here — the National Training Center calls Clermont home, and its hills earned it the title 'Cycling Capital of Florida'.
Pozek Group area photography
Stop 2 of 4Clermont
A 226-foot tower built in 1956 so tourists could look at orange groves.
The groves it was built for were killed by the freezes of the eighties. The tower stayed.
A mid-century relic built so visitors could gaze over endless orange groves. The groves are mostly gone — the sweeping view is still worth the climb.
From our own illustrated guide
Stop 3 of 4Lake County
A lighthouse. In the middle of Florida, nowhere near the sea.
A hill town on a lake, antique shops, a book festival, and genuine elevation.
Storybook streets lined with bespoke boutiques, antique shops and lakeside festivals — small-town Florida at a slower, deliberate speed.
Pozek Group area photography
Stop 4 of 4Lake County
Four hundred people, and a school that sends players to the NBA.
Montverde Academy's basketball programme is nationally ranked. The town around it is a crossroads.
Montverde Academy — USA Today named it the best basketball program of the decade in 2017. Cade Cunningham, Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, RJ Barrett and Cooper Flagg all played here first.
Pozek Group area photography
What’s actually there?
6 of the 26 places we hold a page for in Lake County.
Open-now and hours: Google, live.
What would I do on a Saturday?
What Lake County is doing on Saturday, October 3 — from our calendar and from Google’s hours, nothing invented.
Open that Saturday
What would annoy you about living here?
The hills are real and so is the distance — the drive into Orlando is forty minutes on a good day, and out here you drive for everything.
And what’s coming?
The Olympus Project — under construction, as of May 26.
The page with the dates on itThe Olympus Project→Can I talk to anyone here?
That was the drive. Lake County has a room, and it stays open after the tour ends — what’s on, what changed, what somebody is annoyed about this week.
Where this place talksThe Lake County room→Where else should I look?
That’s the tour
Lake County, in 4 stops, 5 of Ken’s films, 6 places with a page and 1 dated event.
Keep goingEverything about Lake County→How we decide what you see
