Anna Maria Island

My trip to Anna Maria Island was a simple day trip, I drove down on a Friday afternoon with plans to take a look around and find some good spots to Photograph. I found a very beautiful Island town full of alluring sites, the architecture was very charismatic. Most of the streets on the NE end of the Island ended with small walkways to the beach. I wandered around the Island enjoying the areas charm. I came across the Rod and Reel Pier with a small parking lot, lucky me I found a spot to park and decided to take a look around, this would be a great spot to relax and try your luck with catching dinner while chatting with the locals. My next stop was at the Historic Anna Maria City Pier, with a good amount of parking and a nice stretch of beach I decided this was another good place to explore. I walked to the small park on the beach, with nice shade trees and picnic tables this would be a wonderful place to bring the family and spend the day. The Pier has a restaurant and bait shop and if you get there on the right night they have live music.

Anna Maria Island, an idyllic barrier island on Florida’s Gulf Coast, is an undiscovered gem that offers you miles of magnificent white sand beaches, without towering condos, noisy traffic and a throng of tourists. Anna Maria is comprised of three small-town communities: Anna Maria;  Holmes Beach;  and Bradenton Beach.  This laid back and low key community is a perfect backdrop for some R&R.

Imagine dining at a beach-side restaurant in December and listening to a guy on guitar singing Christmas songs while watching the glorious sun melt into the horizon. Or simply walk along the beach at low tide to discover a wealth of sand dollars and other exquisite shells. read more..

From May through October in Florida, sea turtles come ashore to nest. Anna Maria Island is one of the many places in Florida that sea turtles nest on the beaches. Protection of the sea turtles is an important aspect of the island culture, and information and training is available for tourists and locals in abundance. Manatees are also frequent summer visitors at Anna Maria Island, and similarly, the Manatee is held in great reverence by islanders. A subspecies of the Indian Manatee, these herbivores call Anna Maria Island their summer vacation home. The entire island is a bird sanctuary, and pelicans, multiple types of cranes and herons, wild parrots, sand pipers, hawks, vultures, seagulls, and crows share the island with humans. readmore…

Posted by David McRee at BlogTheBeach.com…I recently spent some time on Holmes Beach, near 30th Avenue, with Suzi Fox and several dedicated Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch volunteers. The evening’s mission was to examine several turtle nests that had recently hatched to determine how successful the hatch was. This particular nest was originally deemed to be too close to the water’s edge, so the volunteers moved it higher up on the beach near the dune. 92 eggs were counted when the nest was moved.  After excavation, 91 eggs were accounted for, 12 of which did not hatch. So this was a successful nest. read more…

Jenn’s Travel Close Up…I am always looking for good getaway spots. Somewhere you can go to just relax, eat some good food, sit on a beach and just get away from it all. Granted I do enjoy busy vacations full of historic sites and things to do, but lately, I have really enjoyed just sitting back relaxing and watching the waves come in. Anna Maria Island, near Bradenton Florida, just outside of Sarasota, looks like a good candidate. Unfortunately the day we went, it rained…all day. No sitting on the white sugar sand beach for us, no strolls along the surf looking for shells. But we were not to be deterred. We came for relaxation and a nice day trip, so we were just going to have to make the best of it, by eating our way through Anna Maria Island. read more…