Page 47 - 2024-2025 Travel Guide to Florida

across the street. North Naples also has its own comedy club-restaurant complex—Off the Hook Comedy Club. For quirky spectator sport entertainment, you can’t beat the Swamp Buggy Races held four times a year. It involves big-tired Everglade vehicles, lots of mud, and a festival queen who ends up in the deepest mud hole. East of town in Immokalee, the Seminole Casino Hotel hosts gaming and big-name entertainment.
To the north, Bonita Springs is building a reputation for comedy, live music, dining, performing arts and indie films.
Downtown Fort Myers has the hottest nightlife and special events scene in town. Fort Myers is also home to two Major League Baseball stadiums that host the Minnesota Twins and Boston Red Sox during spring training.
The Tampa Bay Rays train in Port Charlotte to the north.
The Sarasota-Bradenton area is home to three spring training teams as well—the Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles and Atlanta Braves. The Atlanta Braves spring
SARASOTA • VISIT FLORIDA
FLORIDA MARITIME MUSEUM, BRADENTON • BRADENTON AREA VISITORS BUREAU
training takes place in the new state-of-the art complex, CoolToday Park in North Port, south of Sarasota.
Much of Sarasota’s entertainment and nightlife is of a higher brow ilk, with a reputation for fine theater, symphony and opera. Downtown Sarasota sparkles at night
with sophisticated clubs, and Siesta Key has a beachy party atmosphere in the village.
Don’t miss the beach clubs of Bradenton Beach for more laid-back entertainment options. Bradenton’s Manatee Performing Arts Center infuses energy into downtown, as does its dynamic Riverwalk.