Florida through the Year
Costumed participants at the Bay Area Renaissance Festival,
Tampa
With its subtropical temperatures, southern Florida is
most popular in the winter high season, from mid-December to mid-April,
while northern Florida’s beaches draw larger crowds in spring and summer.
Avoid heading to the Panhandle or Daytona Beach in March, when colleges are
on spring break and hordes of young people visit the beaches. Each season
brings its own share of fun and festivals that add excitement to a visit
anywhere in Florida.
Spring
Spring celebrations salute everything from shells and
strawberries to tall ships and motorcycles, while sports go into high gear
with baseball spring training and traditional Scottish Highland Games.
March
The Bay Area Renaissance
Festival in Tampa features armor-clad knights sword-fighting on
horseback. Another era of history comes to life as the 1668 Sack of St. Augustine is re-enacted.
Baseball brings cheering fans to spring training games
all over the state, while motorcycle enthusiasts head for the annual Bike Week at Daytona Beach. The Carnaval & Calle Ocho is a lively series
of Latin-infused events in Little Havana, with food, Cuban music, and
colorful costumes.
More March favorites include the treasures of the Sanibel Shell Festival, the Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City,
near Tampa, and Springtime Tallahassee, a
weekend festival that includes a parade of costumed floats.
April
Kids will love the Zoo Miami’s
Great Egg Safari, where besides hunting for eggs, the fun
includes face painting, rock climbing, bouncy castles, and visits from
the Easter Bunny. The amazing underwater Easter
Egg Hunt in Tavernier is open to divers and snorkelers of all
ages.
Military musters are part of the festivities at the
annual Conch Republic Independence
Celebration in Key West, while the Dunedin Highland Games on the Gulf Coast feature competitions
between colorful kilted bands, Highland dancers, and athletes having a
go at throwing the hefty Dunedin Stone.
May
SunFest, in West Palm
Beach, calls itself “Florida’s largest waterfront music and art
festival,” with more than 100 artist booths, food stands, and three
stages of entertainment on the tree-lined walkways along the
Intracoastal Waterway. A Family Activities Tent offers games and fun for
little ones. Folk songs, crafts, and the chance to feast on gumbo and
barbecue have drawn families to the Florida Folk
Festival at Stephen Foster Folk Culture State Park, about an
hour’s drive west of Jacksonville, for more than 60 years. Jacksonville
is the place to be on Memorial Day weekend,
when musicians perform downtown for the Jacksonville Jazz Festival. Kids will love watching ships and
boats sail past at nearby Jacksonville Landing on the St. Johns River.
Bay Area Renaissance Festival
www.bayarearenfest.com
Bike Week
www.officialbikeweek.com
Carnaval & Calle Ocho Festival
www.carnavalmiami.com
Dunedin Highland Games
www.dunedinhighlandgames.com
Easter Egg Hunt
www.captainslate.com
Florida Folk Festival
www.floridastateparks.org/folkfest
Sack of St. Augustine
www.augustine.com
Sanibel Shell Festival
www.fortmyers-sanibel.com
Springtime Tallahassee
www.visittallahassee.com/events
Zoo Miami’s Great Egg Safari
www.zoomiami.org/Egg_Safari
Summer
The fun carries on with festivals featuring great food and
beach activities. July 4 brings fireworks, the rodeo promises Old West
excitement, and the Blue Angels aerobatics fill the skies with thrills.
June
The Monticello Watermelon
Festival, near Tallahassee, offers arts and crafts, a bed race,
and cool, juicy watermelon for $1 a slice. More sweet treats await at
the Panhandle Watermelon Festival in Chipley,
which includes live music, a parade, an antique car show, a street fair,
and dancing. Not far away, in Fort Walton Beach, pirate gangs skirmish
at the Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival, which
has a whole bunch of activities for young buccaneers.
At Anastasia State Park, the Beach Bash challenges the imaginations of sand-castle builders,
and offers scavenger hunts and nature walks for families. For a change
of pace, the Silver Spurs Rodeo in Kissimmee,
4½ miles (7 km) south of Gatorland, offers a chance to watch bareback
riding, bronco riding, and barrel races.
July
Independence Day on July 4
is celebrated all over the state, but Miami has the biggest events of
all. The festivities begin at 11am in Key Biscayne, and feature a parade
with marching bands, stilt dancers, floats, and bagpipers. Head to
Bayfront Park for America’s Birthday Bash, a
full day of fun and food, including an afternoon Kids’ Zone and
fireworks starting at 9pm. Miami Beach offers free blues and jazz
concerts and nighttime fireworks.
More than 100 stocky, bearded Ernest Hemingways show up
in Key West for the Papa Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, a highlight of
the Hemingway Days Festival. Don’t miss the
mock “running of the bulls,” in which bulls on wheels are pushed around
with Hemingway look-alikes perched on top.
All eyes are on the sky when the Blue Angels, the US
Navy Flight Demonstration squadron, perform their famous aerial stunts.
The Blue Angels Air Show is held in
Pensacola. Arrive early to get a seat in the bleachers at the National
Naval Aviation Museum viewing area.
Ernest Hemingway look-alikes on fake bulls at the
Hemingway Days Festival, Key West
August
In Key West, the end of summer means the opening of
the lobster season and cause for a party, Lobsterfest, with free concerts, a street fair, and lots of
lobster to eat. A 45-minute drive north of Panama City, in Wausau, an
all-American small-town parade, arts and crafts vendors, and great food
make the Wausau Possum Festival a much-loved
tradition.
America’s Birthday Bash
www.bayfrontparkmiami.com
Beach Bash
www.visitflorida.com
Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival
www.billybowlegspiratefestival.com
Hemingway Days Festival
www.hemingwaydays.org
Lobsterfest
www.keywestlobsterfest.com
Monticello Watermelon Festival
www.monticellojeffersonfl.com
Silver Spurs Rodeo
www.silverspursrodeo.com
Fall
More seafood feasting, medieval jousting on horseback,
lavish Latin parades, Halloween, and the American Sandsculpting Festival add
flavor and fun to a fall visit. Late summer and early fall are the least
crowded times in the theme parks.
September
The oldest city in the US, dating from 1565,
celebrates the St. Augustine Founding
Anniversary with a re-enactment of the Spanish landing near the
spot where it took place. More historic hi-jinks take place on British Garrison Day, at the Castillo de San
Marcos, when Colonial re-enactors portray the British troops who
occupied St. Augustine in the late 18th century.
October
In Tampa, costumes come out in the Cuban neighborhood
of Ybor City for Guavaween, a Latin
celebration of Halloween that includes live music, a costume contest,
and a full day of Halloween activities.
Fort Lauderdale International
Boat Show is one of the world’s largest displays of boats, from
skiffs and canoes to super-yachts. Shuttles, water taxis, and riverboats
take visitors to the show’s various venues. Hook the Future fishing
clinics for kids teach young anglers how to catch the big ones.
November
The entries in the American
Sandsculpting Festival at Fort Myers Beach boggle the
imagination with sand sculptures ranging from statues of Venus to giant
butterflies. The Florida Seafood Festival in
Apalachicola has oyster-shucking and eating contests, blue-crab races,
and the chance to explore a charming historic nautical town.
The Medieval Fair in Sarasota
takes visitors back to 11th-century England as jousters in armor tilt at
each other on horseback. The North Florida
Fair in Tallahassee has more contemporary lures, such as
livestock contests, rides, pig racing, and magic shows, plus lots of
food and music.
American Sandsculpting Festival
www.fmbsandsculpting.com
British Garrison Day
www.staugustineinfo.com
Florida Seafood Festival
www.floridaseafoodfestival.com
Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show
www.showmanagement.com
Guavaween
www.guavaweentampa.com
North Florida Fair
www.northfloridafair.com
St. Augustine Founding Anniversary
www.staugustineinfo.com
Winter
Boats brighten the harbors with holiday lights, art shows
abound, pirates parade, and the circus and state fairs delight in the busy
winter season. Note that Christmas and New Year vacation weeks are the most
crowded at theme parks; plan to arrive early to avoid crowds.
December
Holiday parades on the water dazzle, as boats compete
for best displays. The biggest and brightest parades are the Winterfest Boat Parade in Fort Lauderdale,
with over 100 boats competing for the best decorated, and the Jacksonville Light Parade, which ends in a
blaze of fireworks.
Millions of tiny lights create a magical scene during Nights of Lights in St. Augustine, a
two-month-long celebration. Night tours led by storytellers in period
garb, train and trolley tours, and art walks through the narrow brick
streets add to the festive feel. Fort Taylor’s
Pyrate Invasion, in Key West, includes sailing trips with the
“pirates.”
January
The New Year means football championships in Florida,
with the Orange Bowl in Miami, the TaxSlayer Bowl in Jacksonville, and the Outback Bowl in Tampa hosting top college
teams and attracting fans from near and far.
Epiphany, also known as Three Kings’ Day or Twelfth
Night, brings a gala Three Kings Parade, featuring the costumed Three
Wise Men, in Miami’s Little Havana. All ages will enjoy a stroll along
Las Olas Boulevard, in Fort Lauderdale, to see life-size sculptures,
colorful paintings, jewelry, and photography at the Las Olas Art Fair.
Pirates invade Tampa in late January or early February,
tossing beads to the spectators from lighted floats at the elaborately
costumed Gasparilla Pirate Festival, which is
followed by a lively street fair. Meanwhile, the Alachua County
Fairgrounds are transformed into a medieval marketplace, with another
chance to see knights in armor jousting on horseback, for the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire, on weekends at
the end of January and into February.
February
A favorite with children, Circus Sarasota pitches its tent for most of the month of
February each year, bringing world-class international circus talent to
thrill the crowds. In Daytona Beach, engines roar for the fabled Daytona 500 race.
The 12-day Florida State Fair
in Tampa is a chance for the state’s farmers to show off their best
animals – from sheep and cows to pygmy goats, exotic pigeons, and
rabbits. The fairgrounds overflow with rides, music, food booths, a
colorful horse show, a dog show, and plenty of free country-western
entertainment.
The Swamp Cabbage Festival in
La Belle, east of Fort Myers, has some unique entertainment on its
agenda, including an armadillo race. The festival also features a
parade, a rodeo, food stalls, arts and crafts, and the crowning of Miss
Swamp Cabbage Festival.
The Coconut Grove Arts
Festival in Miami is one of the best and most colorful outdoor
fine arts shows, a place where people get the chance to meet and talk to
artists and enjoy good food and music. Children can have a go at
creating their own works of art.
Race cars on the track during the Daytona 500, a
famous NASCAR event
Florida State Fair
floridastatefair.com
Fort Taylor’s Pyrate Invasion
www.keywest.com
Jacksonville Light Parade
www.JaxHappenings.com
Las Olas Art Fair
www.artfestival.com
Orange Bowl
www.orangebowl.org
Outback Bowl
www.outbackbowl.com
Swamp Cabbage Festival
www.labelleswampcabbagefestival.org
TaxSlayer Bowl
www.taxslayerbowl.com
Winterfest Boat Parade
www.winterfestparade.com
Public Holidays
New Year’s Day Jan 1
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
Birthday 3rd Mon in Jan
President’s Day 3rd Mon in Feb
Memorial Day last Mon in May
Independence Day July 4
Labor Day 1st Mon in Sep
Election Day 1st Tue in Nov
Veterans Day Nov 11
Thanksgiving 4th Thu in Nov
Christmas Day Dec 25