Anna Maria Island – Places to See

For the first time ever my kids were out of school the entire week of Thanksgiving and I took the opportunity to plan a little getaway.  This was the first vacation all six of us have been on together since a trip to Destin in 2009!  The beach is a place I can actually go to and relax and my boys are always happy being near the water as long as they can fish.  Since Jordan was already going to be in Florida celebrating a friends 30th birthday, I booked a stay in Anna Maria Island, Florida and we headed off for some forced family fun!

I will let our pictures speak for themselves and recap where we stayed as well as how we got there and the places we found to eat.  Truly it was beach, eat, sleep, repeat for the most part.  The boys did hire a fishing guide and headed out two mornings but other than that it was extremely low key.

 

 

From Texas we flew to Tampa, rented a mini van and made the little over an hour drive to Anna Maria Island.  The island is only about 7 miles long and we stayed in the Holmes Beach area.  It is definitely island time and the max speed limit on the entire island is 35!  There is a grocery store, liquor store but no fast food on the island.

We rented a three bedroom duplex a few blocks (VRBO ID 554464) from the beach which also had a small heated pool.  The home was stocked with everything we needed including wagons, umbrellas and beach chairs.   We chose to make breakfast most days and cooked dinner two of the nights during our stay.

If you ever go you will definitely want to go to Bean Point where the ocean and Tampa Bay meet.  It is the northern most tip of the island and it is absolutely beautiful.  We only headed here and to Holmes beach and both were beautiful and clean.

I can imagine during the busy season dining could become tricky.  The first night we arrived we dined at the Sandbar restaurant.  The food was delicious and we only had about a 20 minute wait, however, on our last night we attempted this location again and it was a 2 hour wait.  I highly suggest reservations here or at the Waterfront which we also loved.  Our fave dinner ended up being burritos/burrito bowls at Poppos Taqueria.  I’m not sure if it was because we were so hungry or because it was that good but we all loved it.

For your sweet tooth we highly recommend the Anna Maria Island Creamery.  We went 3 of our 5 nights to grab ice cream and every flavor we tried was amazing.  The Donut Experiment was a fun treat as you design your own cake donuts choosing from a list of toppings.  They also had great coffee!

By far, the best part of this trip was just being with my kids all together.  As you can imagine, with 15 years between the oldest and youngest they have not always had a ton in common and trips like this really grow their relationship which makes me so happy.  There were so many laughs and so many times we got on each others nerves but being all together and forcing the family time was just what this momma needed!