I know everyone is currently thinking about raking leaves, football, and turkey, but did you know Spring Break for most of our children is less than six months away? Now is the perfect time to start planning if you want to get away. If you have never considered Sarasota, Florida as a family-friendly Spring Break destination, allow me to tell you why you should.
My mom snowbirds in Florida and spends half the year in the city of Venice, Florida which is about an hour south of Tampa and just south of Sarasota. We have visited a few times and I am always just blown away by how many things there are to do with kids in that area. You can compare flight prices for Tampa, Sarasota, and Fort Myers, giving you three options to find the best deal. I can’t speak to places to stay, but there are a lot of hotels and Airbnbs to consider.
Here are some of the top attractions for the Sarasota area:
The Mote Aquarium – This is a really nice Aquarium with indoor and outdoor sections. The highlight for me was when they fed the manatees a head of lettuce, and we got to stand there and watch.
Siesta Key Beach – You may have heard of Siesta Key before. The beach is fine white quartz sand, and it is a really pretty beach often ranked in the Top 5 in the US.
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens – There are two locations for this. One is in downtown Sarasota and it was one of the prettiest botanical gardens we have ever visited. It is super kid friendly with huge climbing structures and just a ton to see. The other is at Historic Spanish Point which was also very pretty with a lot to see although less for kids to climb in and on.
Sarasota Jungle Gardens – The Sarasota Jungle Gardens is another beautiful place to walk around and the highlight for us was getting to hand feed flamingos and Great Egrets.
Sarasota Children’s Garden – This was a very whimsical place with lots of outdoor structures to climb in and on. You could easily spend hours here.
The Big Cat Habitat – This was a zoo that primarily featured big cats. The highlight was my son getting to feed chicken to a bengal tiger and fruit to a bear.
Myakka River State Park – We did a hike here, and they have a canopy walkway and observation tower that was neat to see.
Search for Sharks’ Teeth at the Venice Beaches – Venice beaches are littered with sharks’ teeth and kids have a blast for hours just sifting through the sand searching for them.
The Bay Park – This is a park that is apparently being consistently added to. The highlight is that it is on the water and they have one of the most unique playgrounds I have ever seen where there are two huge white egrets connected to each other and you climb through them.
Vampire Penguin – Ok so this is a dessert place, but it was one of the coolest desserts I have ever had and my son was obsessed. I was so impressed I wanted to look into franchising one in Maryland. The desserts are all made from shaved ice but it is so differently done that it tastes like light fluffy ice cream and it was just amazing.
Things we haven’t done but plan to:
Jumpin Fun Inflata Park – 15k square feet of bounce house!
The Ringling – The Ringling brothers and the circus have history in Sarasota so there are a lot of museums to include a circus museum.
You can clearly see that there is an overload of both indoor and outdoor activities all within close range of each other making Sarasota an ideal Spring Break spot with children.
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