If you want to savor the flavor of the Florida Keys, spend a little time at a tiki bar. Our favorites profiled here are unpretentious waterfront spots where you’ll get good fresh fish, fried everything and a big serving of Keys atmosphere.
The Marathon Seafood Festival calls itself the Original Marathon Seafood Festival to emphasize it’s the real deal – indigenous and authentic. Marathon is a fishing town, and you don’t get fish any fresher than here, unless you catch it yourself.
The Grant Seafood Festival is put on by community volunteers and has been held every year since 1966 in this riverside enclave between Melbourne and Sebastian.
After a pandemic pause, the St. Augustine Lions Club Festival returns in 2022, reimagining its seafood festival past.
This isn’t frozen shrimp or imported shrimp or farmed shrimp. The huge boiling pots at the Fort Myers Beach Shrimp Festival are filled with fresh, right-off-the-boat Gulf pink shrimp. Members of the Lions Club have perfected the cooking technique over 50 years of Shrimp Festivals.
Florida’s seafood festival season kicks off in late August after a summer break and peaks in January-March.
The Everglades Seafood Festival in Everglades City brings fresh local seafood, country music, carnival rides and arts and crafts to this historic outpost on the edge of the Everglades.
Vast and remote, the Ten Thousand Islands off Florida’s southwest coast seems challenging to visit, a labyrinth of twisting channels through thousands of remote mangrove islands.
It’s a long way from just about anywhere — and that’s part of its beauty. But it’s also a great place to bicycle, kayak, hike, watch sunsets and spot birds. An 1859 hotel, now a charming B&B, plus fresh seafood restaurants add to its appeal.
Stone crab season starts Oct. 15 and Everglades City, a small, isolated fishing village south of Naples, is a place to feast on this Florida favorite in an authenic Old Florida atmosphere.
Seafood festivals are common in Florida, but Cedar Key Seafood Festival is uncommonly appealing. Not only is Cedar Key historic and charming, it’s also clam capital of America.
Fresh Florida seafood is best enjoyed in an authentic Florida fish shack, ideally with an outdoor deck overlooking the water. Here are a few of our favorites.
Punta Gorda is blessed with a beautiful riverfront location, but it doesn’t have a beach. And there lies the reason it has an off-the-beaten-track quality. It’s a great place for kayaking, biking, hiking, birding and discovering funky crab shacks and other authentic Florida experiences.
The Pensacola Seafood Festival is back for 2021! After taking a COVID break in 2020, this popular Panhandle festival returns to its normal dates in September.
Everyone wants to discover that funky inexpensive spot where locals go. In Key West, that would be Hogfish Bar & Grill on Stock Island, which wins raves for fresh off-the-boat seafood.
With South Florida in a tizzy over the opening of Florida lobster season, here’s what you need to know, how to catch Florida’s spiny lobster and how to cook it.
Driving U.S. 1 north of Titusville, you would never know Oak Hill even existed. But this gateway to the Mosquito Lagoon is worth finding. There’s fascinating history, a great fishing pier and the sort of atmospheric, out-of-the-way waterfront seafood shack that we love to discover.