Planning west coast Florida vacation. Suggestions? Comments?

[JoePole1]

Hi All. My nephew is getting married in Clearwater beach early May and we are spending 2 days there. After that we are looking for places to stay between Clearwater and Marco Island. Wife is very interested in Siesta Key but open to others (Marco, Sanibel, etc). I have never been to West coast Florida. She likes beach so has to be walking distance. I may do some fishing too. Looks like mostly Hotels and Condos. Prefer cottage/house/villa. We have 6 days and are using the usual VRBO, AirBNB and other interweb searches. Any ideas, suggestions good or bad?

 

[dogbreath]

Check the red tide status before you make a decision. You do not want to visit or stay near a beach with high concentrations of red tide. Presently the higher levels are in Lee county but that will change by May. Plenty of nice beaches though , pass-a-grill , indian rocks , maderia , sarasota , bradenton and venice which are north and less likely to be red tide affected .

 

[like_A_pike]

Venice x2. I found my largest ever shark's tooth on the beach and caught decent fish from the pier there. We dove the artificial reef just offshore and loads of good eats there and Sarasota.

 

[diymirage]

It seems to me that the same people who list stuff on vrbo also list it on airbnb and a slew of other websites, so pick the website you like and go with that, you won't miss out

Close to the beach, you may not find a house, but we rented a condo in a high rise in New Smyrna Beach last year and that was really nice too