[Travel Advice] St. Petersburg, Florida

Random Observation/Comment #549: Wedding weekends are a wonderful thing. It’s a lot more fun when you’re not photographing them and can just enjoy.

nt

Congratulations to Niki and TomTom! May you fall deeper in love everyday.

As this wasn’t a standard bear travel trip, I didn’t do my standard due diligence planning of activities. I assumed I’d be at a resort on a beach drinking alcohol slushees with girly names and tiny umbrellas all weekend. While I actually did do just that, I also found some hidden surprises during our stay. Here were the 5 awesome activities:

Dali museum

dali lincoln

Time: 3-4 hours
Cost: $29 for adults

This museum is well worth the money and fills up very quickly. From the beautiful artwork to the architecture, I felt fully immersed into Dali’s full story. The iPhone provided with the audio tour with the pre-loaded Dali museum app really adds the little stories and describes the subtly behind the artist. The 2 minute sound bytes per painting and vastness of these paintings made it feel like a captivating 3 hour audiobook. The final 5 minute Oculus Rift 3D experience through Dali’s artwork was also quite phenomenal. I definitely recommend heading there early because there will be a line on weekends at 10am.

Sunken Garden

sunken gardens

Time: 1ish hours
Cost: there’s a Groupon $12 for 2 tickets

On our last day before heading to an afternoon flight, we came to the Sunken Garden to enjoy the great weather. We were not disappointed to find a very well groomed and luscious garden with a large assortment of beautiful flowers. Even though it’s impossible to walk through the garden in a 1-25 zone path (driving people like me crazy), I did love the tranquility and beauty. It seems like the perfect place for a date.

Sawgrass Lake Park (yes, there are Crocodiles)

sawgrass lake

Time: 1ish
Cost: free

We came here because we had an hour to kill before heading to the airport and it was on the way coming from St Pete Beach area. At first, we thought it’d be a park for picnics, but it’s really just an elevated wooden walkway through a swamp. The 1 mile of boardwalk was surprisingly green and felt very adventurous. Seeing a live crocodile within 1 minute of entering the parking lot was also a plus. We saw an adult one at one of the overlooks a few minutes later. Finding crocodiles at an open crocodile park is interesting because you want to see one to take a photo, but at the same time you should probably run away.

Long walks on the Beach

sand castles we didnt build

St Pete Beach had all the beach qualities you’d hope for: soft sand, blue water, light waves, little seashells to pick up and save for no reason (to each their own), sand castles, and beach volleyball. I personally loved this morning routine of walking/wading in the water. Great way to start the day…

Day drinking at bars by the beach

drinks

When in Rome… Drink tropical fruit slushees that would normally get your ostracized and weird side glances in NYC bars. That beer was a rookie mistake. Go all in.

Recommended food places:

Snapper’s Sea Grill for seafood dinner – get the wasabi crusted tuna because it looks like this:

wasabi crusted tuna

The Toasted Monkey for breakfast (loved the original corn beef hash)

Jimmy B’s Beach Bar for fish tacos

fish tacos

As you can imagine, this was a relaxing but jam-packed weekend of little excursions. I was expecting to just celebrate the wonderful reunion of two great people and melding of French culture, but instead it was a lot of delicious doses of low stress adventure. Thank you for a great weekend.

~See Lemons Congratulate Niki&tomtom