Over the years, people would ask us: “What’s your favourite place in Florida?” And for a long time, we didn’t really have an answer.
We’d been all over. We’d wandered through sleepy Gulf towns, busy theme parks, and wild stretches of Everglades. Each trip gave us something — a view, a moment, a memory.
But after enough miles and enough returns, one place began to rise above the rest. It became the place we measured all the others against. Not flashy. Not famous. Just a barrier island off the southwest coast. Fort Myers Beach — our favourite spot in Florida. Sanibel just a short drive away, Captiva a little further still, tucked behind the pines and palms.
We first rolled into town back in the early ’90s, on our way south. The girls in the back seat. Times Square still had cars running through it then. It felt a little rough around the edges, but it had a charm that stayed with us.
It would be the early 2000s before we found it again.
We were drifting across the state, a loose itinerary, took a couple of wrong turns heading toward Sanibel and ended up on San Carlos. We crested the bridge over Matanzas Pass — and that was it. One look from the top, with the water stretching wide and the town laid out like a postcard someone had written just for us.
FMB wasn’t just a stopover anymore, it became part of our story.
We stayed so many times, we lost count. Tri pottering around the shops while I was out with the camera — chasing light, chasing wildlife. Late afternoons meant one too many margaritas and live music spilling from the bars. It was easy to fall into the rhythm here. Easier still to call it ours.
It turned out to be a perfect base for bird photography. Spoonbills feeding in Estero Lagoon. Ospreys nesting at Bowditch Point. Waders working the shallows at Ding Darling. And comical burrowing owls a little further north in Cape Coral. We had it all.
In 2016, we got the whole family down. Sun, sand, and the kind of days you carry with you long after the suitcase is unpacked. So pleased they got to see what we’d always come home telling them about. They got it.
We all had another trip planned for 2020 — but COVID got in the way, flights and accommodation cancelled on us. The trip was rebooked for 2023 once the pandemic cleared… but it never happened.
Nature made sure of that...
Hurricane Ian came ashore September 28, 2022. A monster storm with a surge that flattened everything in its path. Fort Myers Beach didn’t stand a chance. Walls gone. Roofs torn. Boats where cars should be. Cars where living rooms used to be. Whole buildings lifted and carried away.
Sanibel didn’t fare better. The causeway snapped, broke in three places. The island cut loose from the mainland. Stores, homes, memories—swept out with the tide. The lighthouse still stood, just, defiant in ruin, but around it was a war zone of debris and heartbreak.
What made these places feel like old Florida — weathered mom-and-pop motels, shell shops, bait shacks, and beach bars got shredded. The death toll in Florida hit 149. Lee County, where Fort Myers Beach sits, bore the brunt. Over 70 lives lost right there. Estimated costs sit at $112 billion. Second most expensive storm in U.S. history. Ian didn’t just take property. It took futures. It changed maps.
Tri and I visited a few months after the storm in 2023. Our favourite destination smashed, still reeling from the impact. Times Square, bars, shops, motels, condos, restaurants, turned to debris. The town clock, an icon that appeared on every postcard and tourist photo, gone. The famous pier, a place to fish from, take strolls on, watch sunsets from reduced to bare concrete struts. Like bones in the surf. Wood decking vanished into the Gulf. A skeleton of what used to be.
Above the familiar slap of waves, there was the sound of drills, hammers, generators. Construction noise where there used to be live music and the clink of beer bottles. The soundtrack had changed. The vibe changed. But the place was still breathing, barely in places.
Now we’ve come back again and the town has made progress, even though it got hit by two more hurricanes in 2024. A reminder that living here means living with risk. Always has. And will in the future. The rebuild is stronger, more defiant but everyone here knows that Mother Nature is still a force to be reckoned with.
On Sanibel, the historic lighthouse has emerged as a beacon of hope when many assumed it was destroyed and found it still standing tall. One of its legs replaced after the storm had washed it away. Likewise the Fort Myers Beach clock at Times Square has been replaced with a near identical one.
It’s heartening to witness the recovery, scars still show and it’s impossible to not keep comparing to how things were. I doubt that Tri and I will witness anything like full recovery in our lifetime but it’s comforting to know that there is a future for these communities and the generations that follow will take them to their hearts just like we did.
Before Ian…
After Ian…
Now…
