A Local's Guide to Saint Pete Beach vacation rentals

Saint Pete Beach is located on a barrier island just off the coast of St. Petersburg, Florida in the Gulf of Mexico and offers visitors beautiful beaches, lively shopping, and unique galleries and museums.

With an average of 361 days of, at least, partial sunshine a year, St. Pete Beach’s white sand beaches and warm waters welcome travelers year-round. Accommodations vary throughout the city catering to a number of different ideas of what a perfect Florida vacation may look like. Couples traveling to the area can opt for condo rentals on the beach for a touch of romance. Meanwhile, families can instead get a house rental. Distributed across the key families can find smaller, more affordable options or could rent a house that is significantly larger and on the beach and big enough to split with other familial units.

See & Do

Visitors to St. Pete’s will have access to the Pass-A-Grille Area and Pass a Grille Beach, the southernmost end of St. Pete Beach, where visitors can walk the historic streets, visit boutiques, and shop the outdoor art market. Named for the French fishermen that used to camp here, Pass-a-Grille Beach has vibes that vary from quirky to charming beachside. The flavor of Pass-a-Grille is perhaps best felt at the numerous kitschy nautical themed restaurants. A few favorites include Brass Monkey, a restaurant and pub that caters to transplanted sports fans from Baltimore, Sea Critters Café, on the water restaurant that serves up seafood and has a dock for those arriving by boat, and Sea Horse, a long established restaurant that specializes in Southern comfort breakfasts.

This beachside town is close to attractions in Orlando and even closer to the cosmopolitan centers of St. Petersburg, Clearwater, and Tampa. Visit St. Petersburg for the day where you can fish Merry Pier, pay a visit to the Salvador Dali Museum, or shop the vibrant downtown St. Petersburg area. True to the artist that inspired it, the Salvador Dalí Museum’s exterior is definitely abstract and surreal as a glass atrium seemingly melts off of the otherwise austere façade. A few Dalí’s recognizable pieces are exhibited here, most notably the Hallucinogenic Toreador and The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. The painting depicting Columbus’s discovery of the New World was one of Dalí’s largest, standing at 14 feet tall and 9 feet wide. Aside from the Dalí display Downtown St Petersburg has many other moving museums including the Florida Holocaust Museum, the Florida International Museum, and the Saint Petersburg Museum of History. Also downtown, just a short trip from Saint Petersburg Beach, is Tropicana Field. Tropicana Field is home to the Tampa Bay Rays, formerly known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, of Major League Baseball. Because the team has not been the most successful of teams in their 20-year history, finding tickets to a game is cheap and easy. Also inside of the stadium is a large touch tank full of rays where spectators can take a break from the game to get up close and personal with some indigenous marine life.

Another great day trip from Saint Pete is to take a quick drive to Fort De Soto Park. Stretched across five keys (Mullet Key is the largest) interconnected by a series of causeways and bridges the area is primarily used for recreational activities. Originally Fort De Soto was a legitimate fortress used in the Spanish American War, but now only a museum and some old battlements remain. The area is also on the a National Memorial to commemorate the landing of Hernando de Soto in 1539 who led the first organized exploration of the Southern United States. These days the area services beach goers. Besides excellent natural beaches the park also has an extensive trail system for hikers and bikers; the waters around the beaches also have a helpful “kayaking trail”. The park also has two piers for use by commercial and private boats. The park is also the beginning of the Great Florida Birding Trail, a five hundred mile trail that is a haven for passionate birders and ornithologists. Those 500 miles are home to some 514 species of bird including the endangered Florida scrub jay, roseate spoonbill, red-cockaded woodpecker, smooth-billed ani and limpkins.

A great stay in Saint Pete Beach begins on the beach and ends at St. Pete’s Clearwater’s waterfront restaurants, rooftop lounges, nightclubs, and bars. Meanwhile, just a stone’s throw from Tampa Bay International Airport, St. Pete’s beach is a convenient destination perfect for the whole family.