Venice Municipal

Sarasota (KSRQ) has the Ringling on the bayfront, a 36-acre estate that's clear from the air. John Ringling, of the circus, was one of the richest men in America by the 1920s, and he poured it into Sarasota: he bought up barrier-island land, built the causeway, moved the circus's winter quarters here, and put up Ca' d'Zan ("House of John"), a Venetian Gothic palazzo on the bay, in 1925. Next to it he built an art museum and filled it with European Old Masters, Rubens and Velazquez and Titian, bought during a 1920s market collapse and meant for the public from the start; Florida State runs it now. There's also a circus museum, with a 3,800-square-foot miniature of a 1930s circus. John and Mable both died before it was finished, and the estate went to the state of Florida in 1946.

Adjacent winter homes of Thomas Edison (built 1885, "Seminole Lodge") and Henry Ford (purchased 1916, "The Mangoes"). The Edison Botanical Research Laboratory — where Edison researched alternative rubber sources for the war effort — still stands. 20+ acres of historic gardens; the Edison museum holds prototypes and inventions. Two miles from Page Field (KFMY); pilots can lunch in Fort Myers, tour both estates, and be back at the airport for a 4 PM departure.

Fly into Fort Myers (KFMY) and Sanibel is the barrier island just offshore; the Ding Darling refuge is the eastern two-thirds of it, 6,400 acres of mangrove that read clearly from the air. Jay "Ding" Darling was a Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist who drew the first federal Duck Stamp and founded the National Wildlife Federation, and he talked Truman into protecting this land in 1945 when developers wanted to drain it. The four-mile Wildlife Drive runs through the mangrove flats; over 245 bird species have been logged here, including the roseate spoonbill, the pink one with the spatula bill. Hurricane Ian hit Sanibel head-on in 2022 and tore up the causeway and much of the refuge; recovery construction runs through 2027, so check current status before you go.

The Salvador Dalí Museum holds the largest collection of Dalí works outside Europe — 2,140 pieces including 96 oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, sculptures, and what is left of the artist's library. The collection was assembled by Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, a Cleveland industrialist couple who met Dalí in 1942 and spent the next four decades buying his work. By the late 1970s they had run out of room in their home and began looking for a museum. They wanted the collection kept together. Several major cities turned them down. St. Petersburg said yes, and the original Dalí Museum opened in a converted marine warehouse on the downtown waterfront in 1982. The current building opened January 11, 2011 at 11:11 AM. Designed by Yann Weymouth of HOK, it pairs a 68,000-square-foot concrete "treasure box" — 18-inch-thick hurricane-rated walls protecting the collection up to Cat 5 winds — with a free-form geodesic glass structure called "the Enigma." The Enigma is 1,062 unique triangular glass panels rising to 75 feet, an homage to the geodesic dome of Dalí's Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain. The Michelin Guide rates it the highest-ranked museum in the American South. The American Institute of Architects placed it on its 20 Most Beautiful Museums in the World list. The St. Pete waterfront immediately around the museum is the city's signature urban space. The Pier (rebuilt in 2020 after the controversial demolition of the 1973 inverted-pyramid Pier) is a 26-acre waterfront park with a fishing deck, a pavilion, restaurants, and an underwater observation gallery. The Museum of Fine Arts and the new James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art are within a six-block walk. KSPG Albert Whitted Airport sits at the south end of the waterfront — one of the few city-center GA fields left in the United States.