Two Major League clubs hold spring training within twenty minutes of us, in ballparks small enough that a cheap seat is still a good one. The Blue Jays have been coming to Dunedin for fifty straight years and the Phillies to Clearwater for eighty. If you’ve never done it, a March afternoon at one of…
There are dedicated pickleball courts about a mile from our Largo place with a friendly morning group who’ll let you join in, and four serious indoor clubs within twenty minutes — one with a bar, one with a sauna and cold plunge. Bring paddles, or don’t; most places lend them.
Dunedin has eight breweries and a distillery inside a few walkable blocks, and the Pinellas Trail runs straight through the middle of them. Which means the best brewery day here doesn’t involve a designated driver — it involves a bike.
Both of our places sit on protected water, and the county has mapped the whole coast into an official paddling trail system. You can be in a mangrove tunnel twenty minutes after leaving the door — or have a kayak delivered to the driveway and never load a roof rack at all.
Thirty miles of barrier island, and they are not interchangeable. One is nationally famous and charges forty dollars to park. Another is a ferry-only island with no development at all. The best one for you depends entirely on what kind of day you want — so here’s the honest rundown, north to south.
You can fish four completely different ways from our doorstep — a deep-sea charter out of John’s Pass, a pier where no licence is needed, the surf a few hundred yards from the house, or a freshwater lake full of bass. Here’s how each works, and what licence you actually need.
A trap and skeet club fifteen minutes from our Seminole place, a multi-discipline club that’s been running since 1966, two well-run indoor ranges, and one of Florida’s best sporting clays courses about forty-five minutes north. All of them rent guns and teach beginners, so you don’t need to travel with anything.
There’s a PGA Tour course twenty-five minutes north of us and a municipal course two miles from our Largo door. In between sits a dozen more — some of the best value public golf in Florida, playable year round. Here’s how to pick.
Pinellas County is genuinely good for dogs — fenced off-leash parks in almost every town, one beach where dogs can swim off-leash, and a taphouse two miles from our Largo place where your dog runs on turf while you have a beer. Here’s everything within reach of our rentals, closest first.
Two shaded miles of paved trail through pine flatwoods, a lake full of bass, thirteen picnic shelters — and, unusually, a bike rental concession right inside the park. If you’re staying with us and didn’t bring bikes, this is the easiest fix there is.