Last updated on March 21st, 2026 at 10:33 am
The 12 Hours of Sebring sports car endurance race is being held at Sebring International Raceway on March 21, 2026.
The Sebring Soda Festival will be held April 11-12 on the Circle. Read more: Local sodas are back at Sebring Soda Festival
After years of inattention, downtown Sebring is coming back to life, a renewal effort boosted by the invasion of HGTV designers and buckets of brightly colored paint.
Sebring’s Circle Park is the centerpiece of a magical transition — Sebring’s “town square,” only it’s round — with paver walkways, traditional park lamps, cafe tables and park benches, a gazebo, playground areas and a pop-up lemonade stand.
On our stroll through the park, a handful of children were playing on “the blue wave,” a couple sat at a cafe table and a man lounging on a park bench watched as a pair of birds fluttered into the tree canopy.
My wife and I played a round of table tennis on the concrete ping-pong table as a young family nearby tossed bean bags on the new corn hole court. Everything you need to play tucked into little trays, ready for a game.
These playful elements are a favorite of Erin and Ben Napier, hosts of HGTV’s Home Town Takeover, which tackled the renovation project with the help of seed money from Sebring’s Community Redevelopment Agency.
HGTV took on the project in 2024, and the makeover aired this past spring on the show’s third season.
“You could tell there are people who really love (Sebring) and they care about it, and parts of it are doing well,” the show’s host Erin Napier told People magazine. “But the downtown, specifically, was fifty or sixty percent shuttered.” Not any more.
Originally Sebring’s primary movie house, the 1923 Circle Theater underwent a major renovation under the watchful eye of Ben and Erin, including a new marquee, fresh paint and interior renovations.
Next door, the Highlands Bank & Trust Building is now a restaurant, Legacy 1912, featuring upscale Southern cuisine. Although the building got a fresh coat of paint from the show, much of the interior renovation was done by the new owners.
Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed during our visit, so we didn’t get a chance to try the food, which has been described as upscale Southern cuisine. We’ll be back. Legacy 1912 is open Tuesday through Saturday, 4 pm – 9 pm.
We stayed at The Roanoke Hotel on the Circle
In order to be immersed in Sebring’s downtown, we chose The Roanoke Hotel, a boutique lodge on The Circle with only ten rooms. Originally built in 1917, The Roanoke was named after a group of Virginians who were visiting the area.
My other choice would have been the historic Inn on the Lakes at the edge of town, but not in easy walking distance to downtown.
At the Roanoke, I chose my room online, picking “Hemingway’s Hideaway, $143 for a weeknight, $189 on Saturday nights (2025 summer rate). The most expensive room was the Old Florida room ($254), a larger room with its own access to the veranda overlooking Circle Park.
The ground floor of the hotel is occupied by an Irish pub and sports bar called Gavaghan’s and a desert room called Dara, both owned by the hotel. There’s no need to check in — they’ll send a code to your phone when your room is ready — but you’ll need to ask the bartender if you want access to the elevator.
I loved the Roanoke’s friendly touches and historic references. We were greeted with a personal message card on the hallway shelf outside our room. Inside our room, there was a shelf with a selection of Hemingway’s books. A nice touch.
On our Sunday morning walk around the Circle, we were disappointed to discover Sophie’s Downtown Cafe was closed on Sundays. We made a point of going back on Monday morning for a breakfast of waffles and eggs.
There is a cute little coffee shop next door, but they only had muffiins on Sunday morning.
Sophie’s is a block from Circle Park on Ridgewood Avenue and is open Monday through Saturday from 7:30 am until 8 pm.
If you go — and you really should — be sure to try the empanadas. We came back later in the day to pick up empanadas for a picnic lunch in Circle Park before heading home to South Florida.
A makeover of the Sebring Soda and Ice Cream shop was a major focus of the show, largely because of the store’s popularity and visibility on the Circle.
The revamped Sebring Soda is much improved over the shop we visited two years ago during the city’s annual Sebring Soda Festival, which will held in 2026 on April 11-12. In its eighth year, the soda festival draws thousands of visitors to the Circle for a tasting of wide variety of craft sodas at dozens of booths.
My wife and I could appreciate the selection of 200-plus sodas available at Sebring Soda, including a few old-timey flavors we haven’t seen in years.
Most impressive were the flavor choices of fresh-made ice cream. The shop also serves “gourmet” hot dogs, floats and shakes. Definitely reminded me of the soda shops we used to visit as kids.
One evening we strolled down West Center Avenue from our hotel to the uncrowded municipal beach and fishing pier. A pleasant walk on a hot day.
Walking back to the Circle, we popped into The 301, which bills itself as an “Eatery, Brewery and Distillery,” The 301 features locally distilled rum and vodka and craft beers from the Sugar Sands Distillery.
The menu on the night we visited featured burgers and bar food, as well a handful of moderately priced Italian-American dishes.
The Community Redevelopment Agency has prepared an informative guide for a “Walking Tour of Historic Downtown Sebring” that you can pick up at any business in the downtown area. The flyer offers brief profiles of the 19 buildings renovated by HGTV.
One thing you won’t miss as you walk around town are the cardboard cutouts of Erin and Ben and HGTV banners hanging from street lamps.
Sebring’s downtown makover is featured over six episodes on Season 3 of HGTV’s Home Town Takeover, recorded in 2024 and currently streaming on Discover Plus. The show stars Erin and Ben Napier of Laurel, Miss., where they film their original Home Town, now in its 9th season.
The race that bears Sebring’s name
The 12 Hours of Sebring is one of the world’s classic sports car endurance races, held annually in March at Sebring International Raceway, a 3.74‑mile road course built on the former Hendricks Army Airfield, a World War II B‑17 training base.
The event has a reputation for being a gritty, old‑school endurance race with huge crowds, RVs, and campsite parties filling the infield.
Sebring’s raceway is a significant stop of the sports car racing circuit, mostly for warm-up racing, trials and training, but its public persona resides in the12 Hours of Sebring, one of the three legs of the Triple Crown of endurance racing along with the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 24 Hours of Daytona (Rolex 24).
Sebring International Raceway opened in 1950 on an army airfield used for training pilots during World War II. The 3.74-mile course is styled after those used in European Grand Prix motor racing.
Sebring is the oldest permanent road racing track in North America.
In addition to the 12 Hours of Sebring, the raceway is active 300 days of the year with a variety of races, private track rentals, testings, the Skip Barber Racing School, and more. For an event calendar, go to sebringraceway.com/schedule.
The 12 Hours of Sebring is at Sebring International Raceway on March 18-21, 2026. The week kicks off with a Fan Fest and Transporter Parade downtown on Tuesday evening, March 17. Race admission: 4 days, $150; Race day (Sat.), $112. Purchase tickets online at Ticketmaster.
Highlands Hammock State Park
The campground at Highlands Hammock State Park is closed for a major renovation project.
Old-growth live oaks dripping with air plants and Spanish moss dominate the landscape throughout much of the 9,000-acre Highlands Hammock State Park, one of Florida’s original state parks developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.
This park has a paved 2.2-mile loop road through a scenic sub-tropical forest for bicycles and vehicles, leading to a dozen interconnected hiking trails and boardwalks, an off-road multi-use trail, tram tours and a shady campground.
Many of the live oaks that populate Highlands Hammock State Park date back nearly a thousand years, having escaped the axes of European seaman who harvested these majestic trees closer to the coast for shipbuilding.
Usually when visiting Sebring, we bring our travel trailer and camp in Highland Hammock’s beautiful but the aging campground was closed in 2025 for overdue renovations, forced by damage from last year’s hurricanes.
We love camping in this state park and will be among the first to let you know when the campgrouond reopens. The most impressive feature of this campground was camping under those shady oaks. Hopefully, that won’t change with the new campground. I’m anxious to see its return.
Here’s a story I wrote about the park: Ancient oaks caress the soul at Highlands Hammock State Park
The CCC Museum at Highlands Hammock State Park
In 1929, local Sebring leaders lobbied to have Highlands Hammock preserved as a national park. A federal official who visited said it was too small. A local family donated land and $400,000 to develop it as a state park in 1931.
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps to put young men to work during the Great Depression. The CCC’s mission, besides jobs, was to created parks, plant trees, build park cabins and conserve natural resources.
Highlands Hammocks was one of CCC’s first parks, and their work work across Florida is documented in the CCC Museum at Highlands Hammock State Park. The museum has displays and photos of the work in progress, as well as the leisure activities of the young men.
The museum is open Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Sebring Events Calendar
November 1, 2026 — 58th Annual Sebring Arts & Crafts Festival. 10 am until 4 pm on The Circle in historic Downtown Sebring.
November 29-December 24, 2025 — Carousel of Lights. Holiday light displays every night in Circle Park from Thanksgiving weekend through Christmas Eve, 6 pm – 9 pm. Santa Claus will be there every night. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7 pm, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
March 17, 2026 — Sebring Fan Fest on The Circle. FREE community event as race-car transporters parade around the Circle. Multiple festivities in Circle Park and surrounding businesses. 5:30-7:30 p.m.
March 18-21, 2026 — 74th running of the 12 Hours of Sebring — The signature Grand Prix event at Sebring International Raceway. For more racing events, visit Sebring International Raceway’s events page.
March 28, 2026 — 15th Annual Avon Park Blueberry Festival. Arts & Craft Vendors, live Bluegrass entertainment, Cornhole Tournament, Kid’s Zone, Car Cruise-In, Food Trucks. 9 am to 3 pm. Donaldson Park, Avon Park.
April 11-12, 2026 — Sebring Soda Festival. Vendors set up booths around Circle Park to sell home-made and craft sodas. The event is sponsored by Sebring Soda and Ice Cream shop. Related story: Local sodas are back at Sebring Soda Festival
April 18, 2026 — 4th Annual “Sippin’ on the Circle” Craft Beer Festival. 75+ Craft beers, wine, spirits, live music, food trucks and raffle. Downtown around Circle Park. 2-7 p.m.
July 24-26, 2026 — 35th Annual Lake Placid Caladium Festival. Colorful annual festival in Stuart Park and surrounding local streets in downtown Lake Placid. Bus tours offered to local caladium farms. Potted plants and boxes of bulbs for sale in massive display tents.
Sebring’s sister cities: Avon Park and Lake Placid
When visiting Sebring, it’s hard to ignore it’s Highlands County neighbors, Avon Park and Lake Placid. All three towns share the same characteristics, rooted in agriculture and tourism dating back to the early Twentieth Century.
They are also irrevocably connected along the county’s north-south spine, U.S. 27.
Avon Park is the oldest community in Highlands County and was named after Stratford-on-Avon, England, from where many of it original settlers immigrated.
The highlight of our visit to Avon Park was the Hotel Jacaranda, where we spent a few nights before Sebring. For us, the old hotel’s swimming pool was delightful on a hot summer day.
We missed out on visiting the popular Maxwell Groves fruit stand, a must-stop for tourists, because it was closed for renovations.
Read more about Avon Park in this Rambler story: Affordable historic Avon Park inn
Lake Placid, Florida, is named after the Adirondack Mountain town of the same name. Seems a group of wealthy New Yorkers who spent summers in the Adirondacks would come to Highlands County in winter.
The leader of that pack was Dr. Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System and founder of the Lake Placid Club in Lake Placid, N.Y. Dewey convinced community leaders to change the name from Lake Stearns to Lake Placid, and they did so in 1927.
Dewey’s role in the name change is depicted in one of the 45 murals around town relating the town’s history, giving Lake Placid the moniker “City of Murals.”
Farms near Lake Placid grow 90% of the world’s caladiums, a landscape plant celebrated every July with the Lake Placid Caladium Festival.
We attended the festival during our visit and were quite surprised by the huge turnout. Less than two hours from either coast, the town is an easy reach.
If you miss the festival, you can visit the colorful caladium fields east of downtown on County Road 621.
Read more about Lake Placid in this Rambler story: Lake Placid charms with clowns & caladiums, good eatin’ & great yarns
Great place to eat
Sophie’s Cafe, 120 N. Ridgewood Dr Sebring FL 33870. Phone: 863-658-1115. Be sure to try the empanadas. Open Mon-Sat., 7:30 am-8 pm. Closed Sundays.
The Broken Egg Diner, 950 Sebring Square, Sebring, FL 33870. Phone: (863) 402-9050. Popular eatery in an alcove at Sebring Square on U.S. 27 between Sebring and Avon Park. Open 7 a.-2 p.m.
Cowpoke’s Watering Hole, 6813 U.S. 27 South, Sebring, FL. Phone: (863) 314-9459. Very popular steak house. Tiki with outdoor bar and dining area. Open Mon-Sat until 9 pm; Sun until 8 pm.
Gavaghan’s Irish Pub, 213 Circle Park Dr, Sebring, FL 33870. Phone: (863) 219-0698. Ground floor of The Roanoke Hotel on The Circle. Typical Irish pub food. Open Sun–Thurs untll 9 pm; Fri–Sat until 11 pm
Sunday Grand Buffet at Hotel Jacaranda, 19 East Main Street, Avon Park, FL 33825. Every Sunday from 11 am.-2 pm in the histori dining room for $21.95 per person. For reservations, call (863) 453-2211.
Historic Lodging
The Roanoke Hotel, 211 Circle Park Drive, Sebring, FL 33870. Phone: 863-282-2066
Inn on the Lakes, 3101 Golfview Road Sebring, FL 33870. Phone: (863) 471-9400
The Jacaranda Hotel, 19 E Main St, Avon Park, FL 33825. Phone: (863) 453-2211
For a full list of Sebring-area hotels, check out Hotels.com.
Nearby campgrounds
Highlands Hammocks State Park (Tent and RV), 5931 Hammock Road, Sebring, Florida 33872; (863) 386-6094; 159 campsites. $18-$29 per night plus $6.70 per booking (Includes $7 daily utility fee for the main campground. Reservations accepted up to 11 months in advance online at reserve.floridastateparks.org or Call (800) 326-3521. Highlands Hammock State Park is off US 27 on SR 634 (Hammock Road), four miles west of Sebring. Security note: Gated park with ranger patrols. Read our story: Ancient oaks caress the soul at Highlands Hammock State Park
Hickory Hammock Wildlife Management Area (Tent & RV), 4900 US 98, Lorida, FL 33857. (18 miles south of Sebring.) Phone: 866-433-6312. RV and tent camping here (Equestrian Center) and at the Istokpoga Canal Boat Ramp (8140 US 98, Lorida) Limited to 8 continuous days. No hookups but generators are permitted. Pets OK. Camping is free, but you must obtain a Special Use Permit. Security note: There is no security at these two campgrounds.
Lake Arbuckle County Campground, 2600 Lake Arbuckle Road, Frostproof, FL (Located in nearby Polk County, 34 minutes north of downtown Sebring on Route 17A.) Phone: (863) 635-2811. Quiet park in remote setting on Lake Arbuckle. 39 shady RV sites with electric (15/30/50 am) and water hookups. 6 primitive tent sites. Dump station, rest rooms with flush toilets; showers. Pets OK. Camping fees: $20 with hookups; $10 for primitive sites. For campground reservations, go to Polk County’s web site. Security note: Campground host on site.
Lake Placid Campground (Private; RV), 1801 US-27, Lake Placid, FL 33852. Phone: (863) 465-2934. Reasonably spacious private RV resort. 133 RV sites; full hookups with 30 amp electric. 2 cabins for rent. Boat ramp on Lake Grassy. Call for reservations. (863) 465-2934.
More places to visit
Visit the Sugar Sands Distillery, 264 Henscratch Rd, Lake Placid, FL 33852. Phone: (863) 453-3938. One of the only U.S. distilleries that grows its own sugar cane and uses it to produce spirits on-site. The 301 in downtown Sebring features its rums and vodkas, as well as beer from its brewery.
Archibold Biological Station, 123 Main Dr., Venus, FL 33960. Phone: 863-465-2571. Nearly 20,000 acres and the headwaters of the Everglades, Archbold studies and protects ecosystems found nowhere else. Learning Center & Nature Trails: Thurs-Sun 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Visits to Buck Island Ranch by appointment. (24 miles south of Sebring; 9 miles south of Lake Placid)
In 2012, Buck Island Ranch was selected to serve as one of 18 sites in the US Department of Agriculture’s Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network to improve America’s food system and boost agricultural productivity while dealing with climate change.
Airboat Wildlife Adventures. Airboat tours of Arbuckle Creek and Lake Istokpoga. 4971 US Hwy 98, Sebring, FL 33876.
Related stories
- Miami to Orlando road trip: Quaint towns, trails and hills along US 27
- Exploring the Lake Wales Ridge for old-fashioned flavor
- Kayaking Arbuckle Creek: Unexpected beauty at a bombing range
Where is Sebring? Sebring is 86 miles south of Orlando, 80 miles east of Sarasota, and 120 miles northwest of South Florida, making it an ideal destination for meeting old friends who live on the other coast, as we did.