Spring Brake in Siesta Key, FL

Spring break was mid April this year. We considered several options and decided to go to Florida and specifically the Siesta Key. We thought about Florida because the weather is pretty good (in the upper 70s to low 80s) this time of the year. Originally, we were going to go to Key West but from our research we found out it gets really crowded. It is also a long drive (over 3 hours) from the closest airport (Miami). There are some flights directly into Key West but very limited directly from our home base. Siesta key has one of the best beaches in the US (according to some reviews we found) and looked beautiful on the pictures we saw. What clinched it was that we were able to find direct flights from our nearest home airport to Sarasota, FL which is about 30 minutes away from the Siesta Key. That made the whole trip much shorter than going to Key West.

Overall, I’d say we loved the trip although we learned a lot about Siesta Key from the trip that we didn’t know since this was our first time and we really didn’t know much from friends about the island. If we had to plan the trip again we would do it differently. I hope that you can benefit from our experience. The first important decision we made was about where to stay in Siesta Key. We chose to stay at a small cottage (two bedroom two bath) which is pretty common in the area. Our cottage shared a pool with another cottage which is also pretty common. The pool ended up being much more important than we expected because the weather was pretty windy at the beach the first couple of days and we ended up spending most of our time at the pool those because it was protected from the winds and much more enjoyable to be at. From what we gathered windy days are pretty common this time of year.  

Our cottage was located at the Point of Rocks which the most southern part of Siesta Key beach. The advantage of that area is that it is much less crowded and less commercialized than the Siesta Key public beach and the Crescent beach. We could still walk to a grocery store, some restaurants, and other stores and were able to survive without a car. I must admit though that the restaurants within walking distance did not inspire us (we cooked at our cottage most days). The more central area of the island in the north have a much better restaurant selection and in general more things to do which was not important for us. That comes with a lot more traffic, congestion, and noise.

Let’s discuss the beach a little bit which was the main attraction. There were positives and negatives. The color of the water is beautiful and the sand is exceptional (very thin and great color). The water was pretty warm which was amazing for mid April and I ended up swimming with no problem. The sunsets at the beach were also beautiful as you can see from the picture.

Now the negatives. There were a lot of seaweeds. I’m not sure whether this was because it was so windy the first few days but it was not pleasant swimming surrounded by them. The apartment complexes and businesses had stakes blocking a big part of the beach and  claiming it as private property. That only left a narrow sliver of sand (8 feet or so) between their properties and the water and even less during high tide. As you can imagine that portion/sliver of the beach got really crowded and we felt squeezed. Another problem for me was that the water was relatively swallow and after waking for a bit inside the water you would get to a sand bar which was even swallower. As a result, it required us to walk quite a while before getting to the point where we could freely swim. Depending on your preference this may be a positive if you have young kids and don’t want them to get to deep water but it was a negative for us.

On the last day of the trip, we rented a car and drove to another beach on the Siesta Key island called Turtle beach. That beach was amazing and much more to our liking than the Siesta Key beach. If we were planning the trip again, we would stay near Turtle beach. Why was it so much better? First of all, there were no commercial establishments in the main beach and it felt much more pristine and less commercialized. There were no seaweeds. The water got deep pretty quickly and the water was as warm. I managed to swim at this beach longer than I swam in any other beaches in the US due to the water temperature and the attractiveness of the water. The water was very calm (maybe we were lucky with the weather?). The sand is not as thin as in Siesta beach and a bit darker but very similar to the beaches we are  used to in Greece. The area is more remote and with fewer stores which probably requires having a car but it makes for a much more relaxing vacation. Turtles do nest at this beach between May and October so we missed them. However, I wonder whether I would have felt comfortable invading their nesting area.

One thing that we did for fun that we recommend is renting bikes. We rented the bikes for a day (which was pretty inexpensive). A day was adequate for exploring the island. We rode from one end to the other of the island with no problem because the island is completely flat. It’s as easy as it gets in terms of riding a bike. We did have to ride on the main road (mostly on the sidewalks and the occasional bike lanes) but we felt pretty safe and we were able to move at a good pace. I think bikes are a good way of exploring the island especially since parking is an issue in the north. Riding the bikes is much preferable. Our host recommended renting a golf cart but we thought they were expensive and not much easier to park than a car.

A couple of noteworthy things about our eating endeavors (remember I don’t solicit financial support for the blog so the comments are only biased based by my preferences):

• We had brunch at Bonjour French Cafe. It was really good. I highly recommend it.
• We had ice cream at Orange Octopus. It was also really good.
• We bought our groceries at the Crescent Market. It was a bit pricey, but the produce was in general good. The tomatoes and the strawberries were really good.

A few more interesting things about the island:

• There were two large hurricanes in the fall of 2024. The first one flooded the island and the second (Milton) tore through many homes and vegetation. During our visit in April of 2025 there is still a lot of work being done to recover from the damage. There are still homes that seem uninhabitable or requiring major repairs. There are also still many trees down. However, that did not seem to have a lot of impact to vacationers and did not disrupt us in any way.  
• There are many beautiful homes on the island. We run into several homes worth upwards of $20M and even modest homes seem to be very expensive (according to Zillow). Even the small cottage we were staying at was worth $750K. I’m not sure why properties on this island are so expensive. Also, there seem to be many many homes for sale at these (what seemed to me) inflated prices. The large number of homes up for sale may relate to the recent hurricanes. I’d say that renting through Vrbo (which is what we did) is a preferable way to visit the island. Owning seems to be very pricey and very risky due to the hurricanes.
• Vegetation is interesting (much more tropical than I expected). There are lot of birds from pelicans to sea gulls and herons. We would hear the chirping of birds almost constantly which we definitely enjoyed. There were not sightings of alligators even though we read that there are some around and no sightings of sharks (both good).