Anna Maria Island is a great vacation spot on the Gulf coast in central Florida. The island, located south of Tampa and north of Sarasota, is a great location for a family vacation. The island offers a lot of beach activities, restaurants, and hotels/rentals without being as crowded as some of the other popular Florida beach cities.
We filled our recent family vacation to Anna Maria Island with a lot of fun! This post covers our favorite activities from our trip that we think your family will enjoy too!
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Best Things to Do at Anna Maria Island, Florida
Here are six of our favorite things about Anna Maria Island in no particular order:
#6: Rent a Golf Cart
One of the first things we did when we arrived on the island was rent a few golf carts for our large, extended family. In previous years when we’ve visited Captiva Island, our family has enjoyed this laid back transportation option that really allows us to feel like we are on “island time”. As a matter of fact, the ability to travel in golf carts was one of the main reasons we decided to give Anna Maria Island a try this time around.
It’s just really easy and fun for the family to hop on the golf carts when you’re ready to cruise around the island or head out to dinner. The golf carts very well may have been the kids’ favorite part of the trip!
The carts here are technically “Low Speed Vehicles” (LSVs), which allow them to be driven on the roads of Anna Maria. LSVs are able to travel at faster speeds than a normal golf cart, plus they have seat belts for all passengers. If you have children under six, they will need the appropriate type of car seat installed in the LSV.
There are a lot of golf cart rental options on Anna Maria Island. There are even some companies on the mainland that will deliver to Anna Maria. Many of the companies offer 4, 6, and 8-seater golf carts. We rented from two different companies to get the golf carts we needed, and would recommend Fun & More Rentals. Their staff was extremely friendly, and they seemed to have the best prices for rentals that we could find on short notice.
#5: Take a Boat Tour in the Gulf of Mexico
On a beach vacation, one of our favorite things to do is charter a private boat. In past trips we’ve went on fishing charters as well as eco-charters and always had a great time with the local charter companies.
At Anna Maria Island, we had a blast with Kim’s Charters! Kim and her crew were able to cater to our large family with three private boat charters that traveled as a pack. I would highly recommend their combination charter, which has two distinct activities in a two-hour time block.
First, we traveled to a shallow sandbar off of the coast, which was about knee-deep at that time of day. This allowed the little ones to wade on the sandbar without any issues. This was a neat tour for both kids and adults, and we found all sorts of critters to examine.
Kim and her team told us to shuffle our feet across the bottom and feel around for hard spots. We were able to find DOZENS of sand dollars with this trick! Our group also found crabs, different types of conchs/shells, and lots of other ocean life! The tour guides were very knowledgeable on the ocean flora and fauna and gave us a lot of information on all the critters we would pull up.
The second part of the tour is a “hands on ecology” that was so neat for the kids. We traveled to an area just off the shore of a mangrove. The guides would pull up seaweed, and the kids got to pick through it and find all sorts of baby sea creatures! We found a lot of baby seahorses and starfish.
We headed back to shore, keeping a close eye out for dolphins. Unfortunately we didn’t find any in the spots Kim and her team typically spot them.
#4: Eat Fresh Fish at the Cortez Fishing Village
All of our trips anywhere near a coastline MUST include eating lots and lots of fresh seafood! What we’ve found on our many adventures is when in doubt, ask a local for a recommendation. This applies to pretty much everything, but especially restaurants. We always want to try to avoid the tourist-trap type places and find where the locals go.
So while we were enjoying our boating adventures in the Gulf with Kim’s Charters, we made sure to ask her crew where to find the best fresh seafood restaurants. We must’ve ALL been craving seafood, because at least one person on each of the three boats asked their captain this same question. My extended family compared notes when we returned from our boat trips. And while the local captains had varying restaurant recommendations (with some overlap) we all got the same general answer: you HAVE to go to the Cortez Fishing Village if you want the very best seafood!
Technically the Cortez Fishing Village isn’t on Anna Maria Island, but the short drive across the Cortez Bridge is most definitely worth it to get the best, freshest seafood in the area. That’s because Cortez Village is a true fishing community where commercial fisherman bring in their day’s catch to the market. Many of the restaurants sit right on the Sarasota Bay waterfront, so you get a true “boat-to-table” meal. It just doesn’t get fresher than this.
After some research into the various Cortez Village restaurant recommendations, we settled on Swordfish Grill & Tiki Bar mainly because it took reservations for our large group of 15. And we were glad we did. We sat on an outdoor deck overlooking the bay and enjoyed the hands down best meal we had on this vacation.
If you visit Swordfish Grill, you’ll find a wide variety of options, but make sure to check their fresh catch menu. During our visit in October, grouper and mangrove snapper were the fresh options. Josh and I both had the snapper and it was great, but honorable mention goes to their shrimp and grits (which came specifically recommended by one of our boat captains). My brother-in-law ordered it and was nice enough to share a bite 🙂
#3: Eat Dessert for Breakfast at The Donut Experiment
One morning on our way out and about for the day, we stopped for breakfast at The Donut Experiment. The kids really liked this fun little donut shop. Donuts are made to order, and each person can mark what they want on a special order form. There are SO many options and combinations to choose from!
First you select your icing (glaze, chocolate, maple, vanilla…). Then for the most fun part comes choosing a topping. They have all sorts of fun toppings including various crushed up candy bars, sprinkles, coconut, graham crackers, or even Fruity Pebbles (to name a few). Lastly you can add a drizzle (caramel, chocolate, etc.).
Obviously this breakfast isn’t about being healthy – it’s all about a fun experience for the family on vacation. They had outdoor seating where we all enjoyed our donut concoctions. 🙂
#2: Visit Robinson Preserve
Another great day trip while vacationing on Anna Maria is Robinson Preserve in Bradenton, just a 15-minute drive across the Anna Maria Island Bridge. Robinson Preserve is free to guests and offers nature trails, kayaking/canoeing, fishing and picnic areas. There are well-manicured hiking trails and boardwalks through the mangrove environments.
We spent some time walking on the nice hiking trails and boardwalks, and climbed the 5-story observation tower for an awesome view.
Also at Robinson Preserve is a fun Canopy Zone at The Nest. Our kids LOVED this family play area. It’s a large two-story structure full of rope bridges, climbing nets, slides, and platforms nested in the trees. We basically had to pull the kids away when it was time to go.
#1: Relax on the Beach
Of course, what brings most families to a beach vacation is, well…THE BEACH! Anna Maria Island offers quite a few nice public beaches. Make sure to set aside plenty of time on your vacation to enjoy the clean, white sand beaches.
Our family loved playing in the water and the sand during the day, and coming back in the evening to watch the beautiful beach sunset.
the last thing you need to know about Anna Maria Island
Anna Maria is a great family-friendly island offering many restaurants and activities either right there on the island or a short drive away. I would rank Anna Maria somewhere right in the middle on a scale from secluded beach vacation to touristy hustle and bustle beach town. Anna Maria offered our family plenty to do for a few days, but was not overly crowded during our visit in October. (However, locals told us that the island is much busier in the spring and summer, with traffic sometimes becoming a problem.)
If you’ve been to Anna Maria Island, we’d love to hear your thoughts and “must-do” activities and restaurants in the comments below! Feel free to share this blog post with friends and family 🙂