Start with something really easy for you.
In your summer heat and humidity, you can grow some Vandas well. I would stick with the warm growing ones and bring them in for the winter. They do need to get their roots completely wet every single day. In your humidity one watering in the morning is probably enough, unless it's a hot day and the wind is blowing. They also need a lot more fertilizer than most orchids to bloom well. You can find a lot of cultural information on them at
Motes Orchids. It is better not to let most of them get below 55 degrees. The ones other people mentioned that take cooler winters don't do well with hot, humid summers like yours. Some blue Vandas don't like hot weather much.
Related to Vanda, and growing similarly, are Rhynchostylis. They are more succulent than Vandas, and you don't have to water them every day. They have flower clusters like foxtails and a spicy fragrance.
Other Vanda relatives you can grow bare-root are Aerides, Arachnis and the bigger Renantheras. Aerides do better with some shade. The other two should be able to adapt to your sun.
You can also grow Brassavola nodosa hanging bare-root. It grows to make a big clump. It has night-fragrant flowers all summer and should do great for you. Bring it in on the cold nights. I bet you have mostly warmish winter days. There are a lot of hybrids made with this such as Bl. Yellow Bird that are also easy to grow bare-root in a warm, humid climate.
There is a group of miniature to small plants from the Caribbean called Tolumnias. You can grow them like your Tillandsias, dangling from some fishing line if you water them every day. They should be pretty easy for you. They clump and make a nice cluster with time.
Hausermann's has some now. Go there and enter Tolumnia in the search box.
If you are willing to grow in a pot, there are a number of plants that will grow very easily for you:
Cyrtopodium species just love hot humid summers. There is one native to Florida, and a lot all the way into South America. They get very big and have huge clusters of yellow or yellow-brown spotted blooms.
Related to Cyrtopodium are Grammatophyllum. They just love hot and humid weather. Just let them get dryish between waterings. They also have clouds of huge yellow and/or brown spotted flowers. Some are very large plants, and some medium.
Related to the above 2 is Ansellia africana. It grows tall stems and has clusters of yellow or yellow and brown spotted flowers in the summer. It is very easy to grow in hot, humid weather.
Eulophia petersii is a very easy to grow orchid. It tolerates Phoenix temperatures (up to 120 F / 49C) outside without trouble. It might take your full sun, or dappled shade.
There are warm-growing Cymbidiums becoming available in the US. Most of the ones grown in California need cool late summer nights to set flowers, but the warm-growing ones don't.
Your heat and humidity will also be good for Catasetum and their relatives. (Often the group is called Catasetinae. Some genera to look at are Catasetum, Cycnoches, Mormodes, Stanhopea) Many of these have dangling flower spikes, so people often grow them in hanging baskets. A good place to find these, as well as growing information, is at
Sunset Valley Orchids. These orchids go dormant in the winter and don't need water then. You can just set them on a windowsill and forget about them until next spring.
By the way, you don't have to keep parts of your Tillandsias dry. Dunk them, then shake out all the water. They were made to catch dew in the bulbs at the bases of the leaves. Do you have Spanish moss growing near you? That is Tillandsia usneoides.
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