The history, characters, and hidden corners that make the Sarasota coast worth knowing, not just visiting.
A month in Sarasota lets you stop sightseeing and start living here. A week-by-week plan: beaches first, then the big attractions, then the outdoors, then the day trips, plus the weekly rituals that give a long stay its rhythm.
Read the storyA few miles inland from Longboat and Lido, a 1945 fish camp on the Braden River still serves alligator and frog legs under a ceiling full of taxidermy. Most beach visitors never know it's there.
Read the storyThe unfinished hotel that stood as a ruin on Longboat Key for decades. A gorilla that saved the circus from bankruptcy. A burial that took 55 years to sort out. Here's what I found digging past the highlight reel, plus what's on at the museum this season.
Read the storyThe causeway you drive to the beach, the circle where you shop, the islands where you stay, nearly all of it traces back to one man who bet his circus fortune on Sarasota.
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