Siesta Key for the Day

Today, we decided to go to Siesta Beach closer to Sarasota. We've been to that beach before and know how beautiful it is. We also knew we couldn't ride bikes there, so we did some research on taking the bus.

We were able to figure out what bus to take and determined there was a bus stop relatively close to the entrance of the park.

However, the website wasn't clear at all whether or not you could pay on the bus. They listed some places where you could buy bus tickets including several Goodwill stores.

So first stop was to ride our bikes about 3 miles to the Goodwill store. When we got there, we discovered they only sell monthly passes, not daily tickets. The clerk there wasn't sure about how you bought at daily ticket.

So we rode back to the campground to leave our bikes — our plan was to see if we could purchase a ticket on the bus.

We waited out on the highway for about 20 minutes until the bus came. The bus driver told us we could purchase our tickets on board, but the ticket did not include the transfer we were going to need to get to the beach.

Once we sat down, Greg picked up a booklet on the bus system that had maps and schedules for the various routes. On the inside cover, it indicated there is a all-day ticket available for $4. So Greg ended up going back up to the bus driver to ask if we could buy the $4/daily ticket on the bus. He ended up giving us two complimentary all-day tickets —so all of a sudden, we were covered for our transfer and our trip home!

The only thing we think was strange is that there is no mention on the fare page on the website of this daily ticket — we think that would have been really helpful information to visitors to Sarasota like we are!

By the time we reached Siesta Key Village, it was about 1:50 pm and we were hungry! We had planned to have a lunch out — a special treat since we've made about 95% of our meals in the motor home. Both of us were hungry for some seafood since we were in Florida.

I had blackened Mahi Mahi in romaine lettuce leaves with salsa, guacamole, and rice. It was delicious! Greg had fish tacos.













After our late lunch, we walked around the village a little before heading out to the beach. We saw lots of families — it appears the majority of the college students are back at school studying hard.

The beach is huge with wonderful white sand similar to the beaches on the panhandle of Florida.

We ended up walking for about 1.5 hours just enjoying people watching — all ages, shapes, sizes, etc.

After our time on the beach, we headed back to the bus stop and got back to the campground at about 6:15 pm.

It was another great day, and we now know how to go about taking the bus, thus expanding our options for staying at this park.