Florida Winter Destinations
January 2024
Find Your New Favorite Destination This Winter
By Janet K. Keeler
Winter is a glorious time in Florida, with plenty of holiday events and outdoor festivals celebrating food, art, and culture. The beautiful beaches, matched by even more gorgeous weather, bring winter residents back and attract travelers from around the world. Floridians come out to play, too.
Some winter events are known far and wide, like the rollicking New Year’s Eve traditions in Key West, Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party at Disney World, the world-renowned Art Basel in Miami, and the South Beach Wine & Food Festival.
Here’s a list of some lesser-known, but equally fun, winter events in the Sunshine State.
A Hopping Good Food Festival
The Sunshine State is famous for oranges, key lime pie, and stone crab claws. But frog legs? Not so much, but that hasn’t kept the folks of Fellsmere, northwest of Vero Beach, from celebrating the hoppers as good eating during the Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival. For more than two decades, the city raised funds for children’s programs by selling frog legs — 700-plus pounds of them — and gator tail dinners during the festival. Oh, but there’s more, including frog jumping contests, carnival rides, live music, a car show, and dozens of booths featuring crafts, jewelry, and other artisan items. You can even try your hand at catching a frog, but remember they have a distinct advantage.
Pack Your Breath Mints
It’s billed as the “best stinkin’ party in South Florida,” and if you like the pungent taste of the “stinking rose” then the South Florida Garlic Fest is your kind of soiree. Florida isn’t a garlic-growing state, but years ago a group of civic leaders decided garlic was the perfect vehicle to help them raise money for nonprofit arts and children’s groups. The idea stuck — or stunk? — and now there’s three day’s worth of food, drink, and music in the Village of Wellington Town Center in Wellington. Garlic ice cream, garlic barbecue, or garlic-loaded chicken nachos, anyone?
A Pirate’s Mardi Gras
Gasparilla season is January, February, and March in Tampa, and that’s when pirate culture collides with Mardi Gras-like festivities around the city. There’s a pirate invasion in the waters downtown and several parades that draw thousands. The main Gasparilla parade has become so raucous and fun that a children’s parade has become a Pirate Festival mainstay. Krewes of men and women dress in pirate garb to toss beads and ride floats at all the parades. There are balls and parties, too. It’s a festive time, and the Knights of Sant’ Yago Knight Parade in historic Ybor City is one of many popular events. The historic Cuban neighborhood always looks festive at night. Watch the cigar rollers and buy yourself a local stogie while you’re here.
Art in the Great Outdoors
No need for a jacket for the annual Naples National Art Festival, where as many as 300 artists display their work in Cambier Park. Naples is an art-loving city with many galleries, and that love spills outside during the fine-weather month of February. Some 15,000 visitors walk among the tents of paintings, sculptures, hand-blown glass, ceramics, woodwork, and artisan jewelry. The artists are almost always present, and it’s a good time to ask them about their work. And then buy a piece.
