Road Trip !

[tyke]

Hi all

Planning a trip to Florida next May - 1 week touring and 1 week in the villa in Orlando.

This will be our first time out on the road in Southern Florida.

We will be starting off in Miami and then plan to travel down to the Keys and then up the gulf coast en-route to Orlando.

We have visited Clearwater and St Petes before and so will not be including this area in our itinerary.

Any suggestions for the places we must not miss !

Also any recommendations for hotels along the way !

tyke

 

[WDWfan uk]

Hi Tyke,

I expect you'll be taking 'Alligator Alley' from Miami to the Gulf Coast - don't expect too much from this road in the way of scenery (or alligators!), but once you get to the coast you have Naples. The best way to tour Naples is by taking the trolley tours. The pier there is considered a tourist attraction but it is extremely popular for fishing and we found a little too much blood and guts near the end of the pier! We saw plenty of dolphins swimming off the coast here.
You also have the islands of Captiva and Sanibel (Sanibel for shelling!) and as you go up the coast road, if you are looking for a great beach Siesta Key is VERY nice. When we were there, I didn't see any hotels, only condos, but since we were there, notice that a couple of posters have said they are staying at Siesta Key this year, so I hope they'll be able to advise you re accommodation.

Then you reach Sarasota - a lot of the beaches here are private so, particularly in Longboat Key, you need to choose a hotel with a good stretch of beach of it's own. (I'm not going to recommend our hotel which was on Lido Key as I think their beach was eroding pretty rapidly and I notice Virgin no longer have them in their brochure).
There's a lot in Sarasota but we were so tired we didn't take advantage of this apart from spending some time in St Armands Circle and driving down to Siesta Key.

 

[FEEBEE]

Hi,

What a great trip to loom forward to.

We did orlando / marco island and then Aligator alley flying out of Miami.

We broke the trip up with a night in sarasota (Hilton Longboat key) and then had 12 nights at the Hilton on Marco Island which is loveley.

I would recommendtravelling down the coast and visiting both places perhaps having nights in Sanibel and Captica too. naples is lovely and only 20mins drive from Marco.

I like Marco because I think it has a different feel to other places. It is very relaxing, and a real 'island' community atmosphere. it is a good base to see all of the other places above, and also excellent for doing the Everglades. We did out Airboat tour from Everglades City, which although I wasnt really keen to start with ended up being a highlight of the hol.

I used Virgin Travelstore to book the hotels direct (through Expedia) and have always had good prices.

Hope this helps.

Have a wonderful time.

 

[Mrs Dazzle]

Have to agree with Feebee - Marco Island is fabulous. We're back there this October for 10 nights after having a wonderful holiday there last year. We've been to Clearwater and St Pete's a few times and out of preference would pick Marco any day.

It's such a peaceful, beautiful place, as is Naples.

The beach is great just for chilling out, or shelling - and there's loads of different restaurants, the Everglades are 20-30 mins away, well worth exploring as are some of the other "10,000" islands around Marco. There are different boat trips for exploring too. There's loads to do if you want, or nothing at all

Fort Myers is a nice beach area, although busier than Naples and Marco.

Sanibel and Captiva are beautiful places too - Sanibel in particular as it's a small, community island with a really laid back feeling about it.

If you're into wildlife, the southern Gulf - Marco to Sanibel - is excellent - as are the Keys. If you're down near Key Largo, go visit Robbie's Marina and feed the Tarpon - what an experience