Family friendly vacation spot on Fla Gulf Coast?

jc&cat · January 2013

Does anyone recommend a family friendly resort/location on the gulf coast of Florida? I would prefer to fly direct to maybe Tampa and have an hour or less drive to the location. The trip might be like 5 days or so.

DH and I love the Fla Keys but the drive from Ft. Lauderdale or Miami to even Marathon is alot with the kids after a long flight. We did that when DS was just 2 years old and I was newly pregnant was DD and it was tough.

We are not ready for disney but would like a nice family vacation this Spring!

amyc216 · January 2013

I am a fan of Destin or Panama City Beach. I think there is a small airport in P.C., but you may need to fly in to Pensacola. Both have beautiful beaches and tons of restaurants, putt-putt, and other kids' activities. Destin is more low-key and P.C. is more touristy.

Chatterbug6917 · January 2013

FT myers beach...my family has a house there, its about an hour from ft laud. and you can go to sanibel island as well, it's even like 2.5 hours from orlando so you could possibly go there too, and the places are reasonable..

RachelTice · January 2013

We love Destin. They have absolutely beautiful beaches.

sportsmomma · January 2013

amyc216:
I am a fan of Destin or Panama City Beach.nbsp; I think there is a small airport in P.C., but you may need to fly in to Pensacola.nbsp; Both have beautiful beaches and tons of restaurants, puttputt, and other kids' activities.nbsp; Destin is more lowkey and P.C. is more touristy.

This! We go to PCB or Destin yearly. The new PCB airport is pretty nice and Sourhwest flies there so we love that. We usually go through vrbo.com to find a condo there and have always been happy.

noahchristopher · January 2013

We are from Florida, just 45 mins south of Tampa. Sarasota. AWESOME town with small barrier islands. Siesta Key is very family friendly and has the whitest softest sand you'll ever come in contact with. Longboat Key is very upscale and beautiful, with several beach accesses to frequently deserted beaches. Lido Key has a great shopping circle called St. Armands and a nice stretch of beach. All of these keys (islands) run along Sarasota with easy access, all within 5 miles of eachother.

The above locations other people have suggested are at least two hours north or south of Tampa, maybe more.

MesmrEwe · February 2013

I really liked the Sarasota to Ft. Myers area... There were a lot of things in Sarasota such as the Ringling Museum that is neat even for kids. There is also the Circus museum, and you can still go "flying" with Tito Gaona (.com) not too far away. Even if all you do is go out to watch, it's AWESOME - Tito is one of the most magnetic personalities you'll ever meet and has some amazing stories of "back in the day" when his entire family was touring for shows. If you can, go out flying with him, it's a super neat experience! There was an awesome seafood restaurant on Long Beach (could be Longboat) Key... There's the aquarium along the keys.

As the PP mentioned, it's just an overall awesome area.

babygrl5507 · February 2013

FWIW, Naples is BEAUTIFUL and not that far from the Tampa area.

Family friendly vacation spot on Fla Gulf Coast?

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