Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota (SRQ) is all about the walkable downtown, but frankly buying a home in downtown Sarasota is not in the cards for the average person. My wife and I lived on a boat in Marina Jack for four years, before finding an affordable downtown condo (#107) to renovate. It came out so nice, we bought a second unit (#208) as an investment and renovated that, too.
With an average price for a 2-bedroom, 2-bath condo in downtown SRQ ranges from $750k to $950k finding something in the three-hundred thousands is not easy.
Photo from PeninsulaSarasota.com
Our Two Downtown Sarasota Condos Are For Sale!
See the Listings: #208 & #107 or
Visit SarastaCondoLiving.com for details.
Discover Sarasota, the accessible – ten minutes from the airport – small city. Walk from the center of town to hundreds of restaurants, performing art venues, shops, museums/galleries and a superyacht marina in minutes.
Learn how we (Jerry and Gail) found an affordable way to live downtown in this beautiful city. For four years we lived on our boat in the downtown marina while we searched for, and finally found, a reasonably priced home in the city.
Everyone who visits Sarasota wants to return and stay – until they get sticker shock at the prices. Our story may help you also live in this vibrant, European-like city where you walk to everything. First, just what’s so special about Sarasota?
Accessibility
Sarasota’s airport (SRQ) is the fastest growing in the country, which tells you a lot. Eleven airlines have check-in counters – there is nonstop discount service to everywhere. A new concourse, pictured below, opened in January, 2025. You can get downtown from the airport in ten minutes via
Learn how we (Jerry and Gail) found an affordable way to live downtown in this beautiful city. For four years we lived on our boat in the downtown marina while we searched for, and finally found, a reasonably priced home in the city.
Everyone who visits Sarasota wants to return and stay – until they get sticker shock at the prices. Our story may help you also live in this vibrant, European-like city where you walk to everything. First, just what’s so special about Sarasota?
Accessibility
Sarasota’s airport (SRQ) is the fastest growing in the country, which tells you a lot. Eleven airlines have check-in counters – there is nonstop discount service to everywhere. A new concourse, pictured below, opened in January, 2025. You can get downtown from the airport in ten minutes via
Photo: Mike Lang, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Uber for ~$20. After landing at SRQ we are on our boat in the marina in 15 minutes, or at our downtown condo in ten. Just a 2.5-hour flight from Providence, RI we can visit for long weekends.
The Dining Scene
Amazingly, Yelp lists 240+ restaurants in the downtown area. Plaza’s and wide sidewalks accommodate café tables. World class rooftop restaurants compete with tiny pubs, and most have happy hours where you eat and drink for a few dollars.
Rose & Ivy, downtown
Salute Restaurant, downtown center
Salute
The Weather
Sarasota marks the beginning of southern Florida, with a subtropical climate making summers rainy and humid, while winters are dry and cool. Brief, daily downpours start in June and promote lush tropical vegetation. In September the days are still warm, but the temperature gradually cools and by November you may occasionally wear a light jacket at night.
December through February brings warm days and pleasant evenings, but the weather from March through May (the high season) is “delightful” with the daytime in the mid-70s to the high 80s and little or no rain. Everyone dines outside in cafés and plazas in the pleasant, bug-free evenings.
The Beaches
TripAdvisor rates Sarsota’s Siesta Key Beach as No. 1 in the US. It’s the only beach Dr. Leatherman (Dr. Beach) has twice named to his yearly list of best beaches in the world. The public beach on Lido Key (just 1000 feet north of Siesta Key) is just as nice, but far less crowded with plenty of free parking, or use the jitney that runs from the downtown area
every 20 minutes. Longboat Key is part of Sarasota, shown in the photo to the right. It has mile after mile of beautiful, sugary sand beaches.
Photo: Visit Sarasota County on Facebook
The beaches are integral to the Sarasota experience, so we developed a dedicated sister website: MySarasotaBeach.com – come back and visit that site when you are ready to explore all the beaches.
The Marina and the City
Sarasota is a planned (i.e., with no urban sprawl) walkable city on the West Coast of Florida. The world’s best beaches are on its barrier reef islands – Longboat and Siesta Keys. The city was designed around a man-made marina and the dredged sediment and silt was used to create Bayfront Park around it, protecting it on the south and west sides.
The Marina and the City
Sarasota is a planned (i.e., with no urban sprawl) walkable city on the West Coast of Florida. The world’s best beaches are on its barrier reef islands – Longboat and Siesta Keys. The city was designed around a man-made marina and the dredged sediment and silt was used to create Bayfront Park around it, protecting it on the south and west sides.
A municipal pier or quay (pronounced “kee”) was built with parking on it, three restaurants, offices, a fuel dock, gift shop, two boat brokerage offices, etc.
Concrete floating docks extend from the quay, to which short finger docks are attached that make “slips” for boats to tie up in. The finger docks ride up and down on rollers attached to pilings, as much as eight feet, allowing the boats to rise and fall with the tides, and stay safe in a storm surge.
Photo by Les and Diana Shapiro on
Guided Discovery
Guided Discovery
The marina has fishing boats, day charters, a Freedom Boat Club fleet, transient slips for visitors and yearly rental slips for long-stay tenants like this writer who lived on his boat, Alto, for years during visits to Sarasota.
The roadway on the quay meets up with Main Street, stretching into town. Sarasota is renown for restaurants and shops which line Main Street. Most have outdoor dining and small indoor café settings with elegant bars. Alto was within 1800 feet (within a 8-minute walk) of over 40+ bars and restaurants, three of which are in Marina Jack in the blue windowed building at the end of the quay below.
Photo from VisitSarasota.com
Since the city was built with a master plan, there is extensive free parking for the marina and the surrounding Bayfront Park, shown below. It’s no wonder that Sarasota is among the most dog walking friendly places you’ll ever visit.
Photo from LidoKeyVacations.com
Every morning people come to park and take yoga classes or walk the smooth, flat paths around its perimeter.
Photo by the Naples Golf Guy
Photo from Enjoy Florida Online
Location
Sarasota County has 37 miles of shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico. It includes the cities of North Port and Venice, and the towns of Longboat Key and Siesta Key. The county has a FL Dept. of Education A+ rating of its schools, a full-service hospital, marine and ecological research facilities (e.g., the Mote), educational programs (Ringling Bros. College, Univ. of Florida, New College and Museums), world-famous gardens and dozens of performing arts venues.
It is among the best places to retire in acccording to the U.S. News and World Report. Sarasota County was the winter headquarters for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus for 75 years, and you can still catch a performance by one of two local circus companies.
The city is connected to a series of keys (islands) by the John Ringling Causeway Bridge which crosses over to Bird island to St. Armand’s Key, Lido Key and then on to Longboat Key.
Sarasota County has 37 miles of shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico. It includes the cities of North Port and Venice, and the towns of Longboat Key and Siesta Key. The county has a FL Dept. of Education A+ rating of its schools, a full-service hospital, marine and ecological research facilities (e.g., the Mote), educational programs (Ringling Bros. College, Univ. of Florida, New College and Museums), world-famous gardens and dozens of performing arts venues.
It is among the best places to retire in acccording to the U.S. News and World Report. Sarasota County was the winter headquarters for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus for 75 years, and you can still catch a performance by one of two local circus companies.
The city is connected to a series of keys (islands) by the John Ringling Causeway Bridge which crosses over to Bird island to St. Armand’s Key, Lido Key and then on to Longboat Key.
Photo from GreatRuns.com
Photo from SarasotaFL.gov
Bird Key, Armond Circle and Lido Key
The bridge soars over the intracoastal waterway landing on Bird Key. This was John Ringling’s winter home, while the
circus practiced its acts in the city. Celebrities have chosen to live there ever since, including: Jerry Springer, AC/DC singer Brian Johnson, Stephen King, Rosie O’Donnell, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Martina Navratilova, Creedence Clearwater’s bass player
Stu Cook & Glee actor Jane Lynch.
Bird Key, also has a beautiful public park with beaches and parking available to anyone. Picnic there, before shopping on Armand’s Circle.
Bird Key, also has a beautiful public park with beaches and parking available to anyone. Picnic there, before shopping on Armand’s Circle.
From VisitSarasota.com
Armand’s Circle, the Rodeo Drive of Sarasota, is in the middle of Lido Key. On the Circle are 150 restaurants, ice cream stations, offices, salons, jewelry & accessory shops, fashion and gift stores. Spend the day shopping, have lunch or just hang out with this walking guide. Drive to the
north end of Lido Key to visit the Mote Aquarium or continue driving up 12 mile-long Longboat Key to visit Anna Maria Island at its tip for its sugary beaches & quaint village shops and eateries.
Photo from SarasotaFL.gov
For a day at the beach, drive south a fraction of a mile to South Lido County Park (see map below) where there’s tons of free parking and the beach has sugar-like white sand, as you can see in the Goggle earthview below. It’s the same sand quality as on Siesta Key Beach (No. 1 in the world), but far less busy. Siesta Key is just south, accessed by the causeway to Bay Island, shown on Google Earth Map, lower right corner.
park in the field on the right.
Photo from Old Salty Dog website
Photo from Sarasota Magazine, 12/30/14
If you can’t get into the Salty Dog, turn around and drive back to the New Pass Grill and Bait Shop, which you passed on the way. It’s been there since 1929. With counter service with picnic tables; the fish is fresh and affordable.
Matt Leicht, Best Waterfront Restaurants
Photo from New Pass Grill Website
Sarasota’s density of shops and restaurants/bars reminds one of Key West or Provincetown, but it’s far less funky. It’s is a grownup city with an elegant, European flair as opposed to the seedy, college drinking-town vibe common to most Florida beach-side cities. For a video tour of downtown Sarasota along with showing Lido, St. Armands and Longboat Keys watch the excellent TampaAerialMedia 30-minute video here.
Let’s explore Sarasota’s remarkable downtown in the next section of this website.
