Marco Island

The island's western shore is one long, gently curving crescent of fine pale sand facing the Gulf of Mexico, broad enough at low tide for long walks and shelling. The water is shallow, calm and usually gentle with no real surf, reaching about 30°C in late summer and dropping to around 20°C in January and February, when some visitors find it bracing. South Marco Beach and the public access points along the hotel strip are the easy choices, while Tigertail Beach on the north end has a tidal lagoon and a long sandbar that is lovely for wading and birdwatching.

Beyond the island, the undeveloped barrier beach of Keewaydin Island is a short boat ride north, and the city beaches of Naples are within half an hour by car. Days here are built around the sand and the sunsets over the water, so this is a place for people who want the beach to be the vacation rather than an extra.

Eating on Marco Island means Gulf seafood with a water view: grouper sandwiches, shrimp, oysters and, in the cooler months, stone crab claws, served in waterfront grills, resort dining rooms and casual places along the canals. The old fishing village of Goodland, on the island's eastern edge, keeps a looser, shack-style side to it with fish platters eaten outdoors by the docks. Beyond seafood and a few steakhouses and Italian places, range is narrow and there is little street food, market life or café culture. For a more ambitious dinner, most visitors drive half an hour to Naples, which has a much larger and more polished restaurant scene.

Marco Island is a resort community built largely from the 1960s on, so there is little historic architecture or landmark sightseeing. The main cultural stop is the Marco Island Historical Museum, which tells the story of the Calusa people who lived around these waters for centuries and of the famous carved wooden figures found here in the 1890s, along with the island's pioneer and clam-cannery past. Otherwise a visitor sees canals, condominiums and the fishing village of Goodland. Anyone wanting museums and galleries will need to head to Naples or further.

Evenings are about sunset drinks on a waterfront deck and a late dinner, after which most of the island goes quiet. Resort lounges and a handful of bars around the marinas and shopping plazas keep a mellow crowd going for a while, and in Goodland the dockside bars draw a cheerful, sunburnt crowd on winter weekend afternoons. There are no clubs and nothing that runs late, and the crowd skews towards retirees and families. Anyone after a proper night out would drive to Naples, which itself is fairly restrained.

Marco Island sits at the northern edge of the Ten Thousand Islands, a maze of mangrove keys and tidal channels that runs south into the Everglades. Kayaking and paddleboarding through the mangroves, boat trips to see bottlenose dolphins, manatees in the canals and rivers, and some of the best inshore fishing in Florida for snook, redfish and tarpon are all on the doorstep. Rookery Bay reserve protects the estuaries just north of the island, and the shorebird flats at Tigertail draw birdwatchers.

Within an hour by car lie Everglades National Park at Everglades City, Big Cypress National Preserve and the Fakahatchee Strand, with airboat rides, alligators, wading birds and boardwalks through cypress swamp. The landscape is wholly flat, so there is no hiking in the hilly sense, and the humid summer, with its heat, storms and mosquitoes, makes the dry months from December to April the time for being outdoors.

The obvious outing is Naples, about half an hour north, with its pier, palm-lined old streets and gallery district. Everglades City and the old trading post at Chokoloskee make a characterful morning out, around an hour away. Fort Myers, about an hour north, has the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, the riverside winter homes and laboratory of the two inventors, and the shell-strewn islands of Sanibel and Captiva are a little beyond. Miami lies across the Everglades on the Tamiami Trail at the outer edge of a day. It is a modest list, more pleasant than memorable, and most of the best excursions here are into nature rather than towns.

For young children the island works well in a simple way: the Gulf is shallow and usually calm, the sand is soft, and shelling, wading at the Tigertail lagoon and spotting dolphins from a boat fill days easily. Large beachfront resorts have pools and children's programmes, and the island is quiet and easy to manage. What it lacks is attractions built for kids. The nearest are in Naples, half an hour away, where the zoo and the children's museum make good half-day outings, and an airboat ride in the Everglades thrills most older children. Summer heat and afternoon storms call for planning around midday.

The island is small and flat, with cycle paths along the main roads, so cycling between the beach, shops and restaurants is pleasant in the cooler months. Beyond that, a car is essential. Public transport amounts to a limited county bus link to Naples, the nearest major airport is around three quarters of an hour away by road, and the Everglades, Naples and everything else worth reaching off the island assume you are driving. Many beachfront hotels are walkable to the sand but not to much else.

On the island, shopping means a few small plazas with resort wear, beach gear, galleries and souvenir shops selling shells and coastal décor. The serious shopping is in Naples, half an hour away, where Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South have upmarket boutiques and galleries and there are polished open-air malls with department stores. There are no markets or crafts of note, and few people choose the island for its shops.

Marco Island is an expensive place to stay, especially from January to April, when beachfront resort rooms and condo rentals are in highest demand and dining is priced for a well-off winter crowd. Eating out is pricey across the board, there is little cheap street food, and a hire car adds to the bill. The heat of summer brings much lower room rates, and weekly condo rentals with kitchens can soften the cost for families and groups, but it never feels like a budget destination.

The island has a small community theatre and occasional concerts, and resort bars often have a guitarist or a band in the evenings during the winter season. For a proper performance, visitors drive to Naples, where the performing arts centre hosts the city's philharmonic orchestra along with touring shows and recitals, mostly during the winter. Outside those months there is little to attend.

Wellness here comes from the pace rather than any bathing tradition. The island is quiet, low-key and built around unhurried days, and the big beachfront resorts have full-service spas with massages, treatments and pools looking out over the Gulf. There are yoga classes and day spas in the island's plazas too. There are no thermal baths, hammams or public bathhouses, so anyone looking for a bathing culture will not find it, but as a place to slow down for a week it does the job well.