I'll act as your Sarasota Travel Guide, a sort of "cyber-tour-guide," if you will, and we’ll explore the Sun Coast area together so you can get some great ideas ahead of time on where you'd like to go and what you'd like to do on your vacation in paradise.

I'll be your "advance team," so to speak!

Our little slice of paradise also comprises smaller towns like Bradenton, Osprey, Nokomis, Venice and their Keys, or Barrier Islands.

And these little towns have some fun places to explore as well. There are so many attractions to experience around our "Sun Coast" area that you’ll be busy having fun for days.

A little background on the area:

Sarasota was incorporated as a town in 1902 and as a city in 1913 and really sprang to life in the early 20th Century thanks to a couple of nationally well known people: one was Bertha Honore Palmer, who had been married to the famed business magnate, Potter Palmer of Chicago.

Palmer quickly established the area as a fashionable place for winter retreats and tourists to visit (you can take a tour of Historic Spanish Point, the estate of Bertha Palmer).

The sheer natural beauty of our Sun Coast area also attracted another big name of the 20th Century: Ringling! The Ringling Brothers, as well as John and Mable Ringling were taken with the area and John and Mable soon developed an estate on property that had been part of the Shell Beach subdivision. They would later build a compound there on adjacent parcels that would also include the Ringling Museum of Art.

With early 20th Century names like Palmer and Ringling behind it, Sarasota was on the map!

Speaking of maps, here’s a little geography on the region: Sarasota is located on the central west coast of Florida, though some will refer to us as part of southwest Florida also. According to 2004 census figures Sarasota, the county seat, had a population of 54,349, although that number swells a bit during the winter season.

Adventures in Paradise!

You’ll find adventure everywhere in and around the Sun Coast;

• exploring the waters and beach combing
  
  
• hiking and bicycling
  
  
• dolphin sighting
  
  
• sun worshiping
  
  
• swimming
  
  
• shopping
  
  
• camping
  
  
• dining

..or just take in the spectacular natural beauty all around you and much, much more. You won’t be able to squeeze it all in on your vacation, but that will just mean that you’ll find yourself coming back again and again and possibly planning to move here and buy a home, as have so many who've fallen in love with our Sun Coast.

Beach Kudos:

Our Siesta Beach, named the 2nd best beach in Florida by tv's "The Travel Channel," in May, 2009 was named the 2nd best beach in the nation in an annual ranking of America's top 10 beaches.

Venice Beach in 2008 was named one of the five best renourished beaches in the nation by The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association. This was the result of a 3 year project that extended Venice Beach another 130 feet along more than 3 miles of shoreline.

Within the area there are;

• flat beaches
  
  
• busy beaches
  
  
• private beaches
  
  
• secluded beaches
  
  
• beaches for sea shell collecting
  
  
• beaches for shark tooth hunting
  
  
• and beaches with sand dunes covered in sea oats..

..but all have one thing in common; beautiful views of the Gulf of Mexico and spectacular sunsets. In case you miss one, I hear there’s another one tomorrow night! I'll let the sun know you're coming!

With Palm Tree lined streets and gentle, balmy breezes blowing in off the Gulf of Mexico, even a walk through the shops and streets of downtown, the Saturday Morning Farmer's Market or through and along downtown’s Bayfront Park, taking in the scenery and boats anchored in the bay, or perhaps sighting one of the bottle-nosed dolphins that makes the bay its home, is simple, inexpensive fun and relaxation.

I’ll show you some really unique places, at least one off-the-beaten-path beach, which just so happens to be my favorite (No, it’s not World Famous Siesta Key Beach – but I will take you there, as well as many other beaches!); I’ll point you toward some terrific Sarasota restaurants, tucked away in places you might not know to look for; plus you’ll find information here about some of the special events that go on in and around Sarasota throughout the year. After all, you never know, you might find a special event that you would like to come back for.

I’ll also point out a few places within easy driving distance that make for great road trips outside of our area and they’re easy enough to get to and back from in a day, so you won't miss out on one of those gorgeous Gulf Coast Sunsets.

And if you'd eventually like to move here, you'll also find information on real estate in Sarasota to help you buy a home.

So if you’re quite ready, grab your sunscreen and sun hat and let’s go and explore, together, our Playground in Paradise…Sarasota, Florida. Here's to your Fun in the Sun!

Subscribe to my Sarasota Blog. (It's free and there's no email address required. Just click on the red RSS box for instructions.) This RSS feed is a small blog/journal about Sarasota (a kind of mini-travelogue I put together), which will also let you know whenever new or updated web pages appear on Escape-to-Sarasota. It will also help you feel connected and up-to-date with some of the events and other things going on in and around the Sarasota area. And it will help point out, in bite-size pieces, things that you might be interested in reading more about on Escape-to-Sarasota as you plan your trip(s) to the Sun Coast area.
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