Fort Myers Getaway

Apparently, growing up in Rochester NY did not make me any hardier when it comes to withstanding the cold. I’ve tried on multiple occasions to bring out the best Elsa in me and try to embrace the delicate snow flurries and appreciate the way the sun glistens off freshly laid snow, but something about soggy shoes, icy cold steering wheels, numb fingers and toes, and the fact that it actually hurts to breathe….well, all of that just fuels my distaste for the winter season.

That is why I booked a trip to Florida to escape the snow for a few days. Serendipitously enough, we happened to book it for the weekend that would come to be known as Snowpocalypse 2019 *insert praise hands*. We picked Fort Myers solely because it was the cheapest flight out of Detroit. We honestly had no idea what there was to do there— just wanted to escape the cold!

We had a wonderful time exploring Fort Myers, Sanibel Island, and Captiva Island, so if you’re ever in the area here are our picks:

1) Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. You can drive, bike, or take a guided tour on a bus through this gorgeous refuge. We decided to take the guided tour and we saw all sorts of Florida wildlife such as tree crabs, egrets, roseate spoonbills, an iguana, a snake (aka NOPE ROPE), among many others! I would definitely recommend doing the tour because the guide was extremely knowledgeable and pointed out a lot of astounding wildlife that we otherwise would have missed. At one point while we were walking down a boardwalk in a mangrove swamp and the guide told us to look up into the trees. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but then she pointed out a small black crab on the bark of a tree. I looked around and suddenly realized THERE WERE CRABS EVERYWHERE. It was actually pretty cool.

2) Watch the sunset on Captiva Beach. You have to time this perfectly because the sun sets a lot faster than you might expect!

3) Babcock Ranch Swamp Buggy Tour. This was my favorite wildlife tour that we did on this trip. We saw a ton of alligators, swamp pigs, friendly cows, horses, and got to pet a baby alligator!!!!!!

4) Fort Myers Beach. We happened to go on a weekend where the weather was sunny but still in the 60s, so we weren’t able to lay out in the sun and soak up the vitamin D. We still had a nice time looking for shells and playing in the white sand though!

5) Peace River Wildlife Preserve. This is a small wildlife preserve with a lot of beautiful birds— pelicans, eagles, hawks, and OWLS <3 Their mascot is Luna the albino screech owl (pictured below). They also have barred owls and burrowing owls and they were all so delightfully cute!

6) Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve. Yes, we went to five wildlife preserves on this trip! We love nature and wildlife. This one was special in that it is a peaceful boardwalk through a Cypress swamp. It’s a serene park where visitors whisper as to not disturb the wildlife. We saw lots of funky looking birds, alligators, and otters (!!!).

We also went to Fort Myers Manatee park. Probably not worth the visit if you’re there for vacation— the most you see of the manatees are the very top of their heads and backs when they surface for air. Truthfully, it was a bit anticlimactic. We visited Sun Harvest Citrus which is a local market and tried many varieties of oranges and settled on Honeybells being the tastiest. We weren’t terribly impressed by the food scene in Fort Myers, but there are a lot of eclectic dining options that are tourist favorites such as the Bubble Room (we had the orange cake and it was very yummy).

Here’s a little video montage of some of the animals we saw and things we did. We didn’t film that much so it’s a little disjointed, but it shows some of the things mentioned above!

All in all, we had a wonderful time! Here’s hoping that it warms up soon here in Ohio :)

Helen