[LINK] "Amish on vacation: What happens in Pinecraft stays in Pinecraft"

[rfmcdonald]

Miki Meek's New York Times article about the seasonal tourist migration of Amish and Mennonites from their homes in the northeastern United States to the Florida community of Pinecraft, near Sarasota, describes an interesting phenomenon of Amish/Mennonite tourism. I don't think it surprising that tourism is a collective phenomenon for these tight-knit ethnoreligious communities given their basic history.

From December through April, Amish travelers pack charter buses making overnight runs from Ohio to Florida. Stiff black hats are gingerly stowed in overhead bins as the bus winds its way through hilly farm country, making pickups in small towns like Sugarcreek, Berlin and Wooster.

[. . .] We were headed to Pinecraft, a village east of Sarasota, on Florida's Gulf Coast. What started out as a tourist camp around 1925 has evolved through word of mouth into a major vacation destination for Amish and Mennonites from all over the United States and Canada. Some 5,000 people visit each year, primarily when farm work up north is slow.

On the bus, older passengers reminisced about going down to Pinecraft as children when roads were just sand and dirt. One man wistfully recalled a great-uncle who hitched a ride down in a Model T. But I didn't fully understand the town's popularity until we reached the end of our 1,222-mile drive, at a church parking lot, where we were greeted by 300 people under a hot Florida sun -- bus arrivals are a community event in Pinecraft.

Walking around Pinecraft is like entering an idyllic time warp. White bungalows and honeybell orange trees line streets named after Amish families: Kaufman, Schrock, Yoder. The local laundromat keeps lines outside to hang clothes to dry. (You have to bring your own pins.) And the techiest piece of equipment at the post office is a calculator. The Sarasota County government plans to designate the village, which spreads out over 178 acres, as a cultural heritage district.

Many travelers I spoke to jokingly call it the "Amish Las Vegas," riffing off the cliche that what happens in Pinecraft stays in Pinecraft. Cellphone and cameras, normally off-limits to Amish, occasionally make appearances, and almost everyone uses electricity in their rental homes. Three-wheeled bicycles, instead of horses and buggies, are ubiquitous.

"When you come down here, you can pitch religion a little bit and let loose," said Amanda Yoder, 19, from Missouri. "What I'm wearing right now, I wouldn't at home," she said, gesturing at sunglasses with sparkly rhinestones and bikini strings peeking out of a tight black tank top. On the outskirts of the village, she boarded public bus No. 11 with six other sunburned teenagers. They were bound for Siesta Key, a quartz-sand beach about 8 miles away.

[. . .]

Pinecraft Park is a melting pot of Amish and Mennonite America. Old order, new order and nontraditional congregate. Clothing choices clue you in to hometowns: Men from Tampico, Ill., wear denim overalls; girls from Lancaster, Pa., cover their dresses with black aprons; and women from northern Indiana have neatly pressed pleats on their white bonnets.

"All these groups can mingle down here in a way they wouldn't at home," said Katie Troyer, 59, a year-round resident who left the Amish church but still embraces the culture. "That's a puzzle people have been trying to figure out for ages."

Just over 3 feet tall and always riding around on a bike with a camera, Troyer is a beloved fixture in Pinecraft known for discreetly taking pictures of daily life that she posts on her blog, Project 365.