Left Kids at Fort Walton Beach’s annual Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival, which pays tribute to a local pirate legend Right Participants showcasing their animals at the Florida State Fair, Tampa
Left Kids at Fort Walton Beach’s annual Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival, which pays tribute to a local pirate legend Right Participants showcasing their animals at the Florida State Fair, Tampa
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 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.
The Bay Area Renaissance Festival in Tampa features armor-clad knights sword-fighting on horse-back. 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 Festival 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.
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.
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.
A diver in rabbit costume hunting for underwater Easter eggs at the Easter Egg Hunt, Tavernier
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.
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.
For a change of pace, the Silver Spurs Rodeo in Kissimmee, 4½ miles (7 km) south of Gatorland, offers a chance to watch some bareback riding, bronco riding, and barrel races. The event pays tribute to the four-century-long history of cattle ranching and cowboy culture in Florida.
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 to participate in America’s Birthday Bash, a full day of fun and food that includes an afternoon Kids’ Zone as well as 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.
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.
Ernest Hemingway look-alikes on fake bulls at the Hemingway Days Festival, Key West
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.
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.
In Zellwood, just a few miles away from Orlando, guests are challenged to “get lost” in Scott’s Maze Adventure, a 7-acre (28,328 sq m) cornfield maze. Visitors can also navigate a number of other mazes and games.
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.
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.
Stunning sand sculpture at the American Sandsculpting Festival, Fort Myers
Jousting tournament at the Medieval Fair, Sarasota
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.
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.”
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.
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
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/events/florida-folk-festival
Sack of St. Augustine www.visitstaugustine.com
Sanibel Shell Festivalwww.fortmyers-sanibel.com
Springtime Tallahassee www.visittallahassee.com/events
SunFest www.sunfest.com
Zoo Miami’s Great Egg Safari www.zoomiami.org
America’s Birthday Bash www.bayfrontparkmiami.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
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
Scott’s Maze Adventures www.longandscottfarms.com
Medieval Fair www.sarasotamedievalfair.com
North Florida Fair www.northfloridafair.com
St. Augustine Founding Anniversary www.staugustineinfo.com
Coconut Grove Arts Festival www.cgaf.com
Florida State Fair floridastatefair.com
Jacksonville Light Boat Parade www.jacksonvillelanding.com
Las Olas Art Fair www.artfestival.com
Orange Bowl www.orangebowl.org
Outback Bowl www.outbackbowl.com
Swamp Cabbage Festival www.swampcabbagefestival.org
TaxSlayer Bowl www.taxslayerbowl.com
Winterfest Boat Parade www.winterfestparade.com
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