Weekend Itinerary in Fort Myers and Sanibel Island

For a long holiday weekend in the US (Labor Day weekend), we found ourselves based in Sarasota for a few days. As part of our local travel credo during this pandemic, we chose to go to a destination close enough but a place we haven’t explored as much: Fort Myers and Sanibel Island.

Sanibel has been on our radar ever since my in-laws reported how the island is nice and the shelling is great. Here’s our quick weekend getaway, with an itinerary of things to do in Fort Myers and Sanibel Island, Florida. With this post, hopefully you can use it to get ideas and perhaps replicate it for your own future trip.

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Candlewood Suites Fort Myers- Sanibel Island Gateway

We booked a non-refundable hotel at the Candlewood Suites Ft Myers-Sanibel Gateway. It’s located over the bridge from Sanibel Island, but also across the bridge from Ft Myers Beach. It’s a convenient enough location, and these extended stay hotels usually have bigger rooms than usual with kitchens.

Despite the location and the brand, our main reason for booking the hotel was the rate was good. The hotel was going for around $60ish/night + tax, way cheaper than the regular price.

Instead of using our IHG points to book or using cash, we booked using Citi Thank You points (around 5,000 TY points). We compared how many Citi TY Points we would spend as compared to Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) and they are almost the same amount. Since we have a lot more TY Points than UR, TY points it was. We are getting around 1.25 cents per point value, which is pretty decent.

Things to do in Fort Myers and Sanibel Island

Activities in Fort Myers:

Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium

This experience cost us $15 for two people, thanks to Groupon. The entire experience lasts around 3+ hours, depending if you’re going to hike, watch the Planetarium show & the live animal show, or if you chose to do all three. We spent the longest time at the Planetarium since it was cool and informative.

The nature center & planetarium’s exhibits are a bit small, but looking out at the animals and learning about space was a plus. It certainly entertained us, but one may not last that long if traveling with young children.

Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve

We spent around 1 1/2 hours for hiking, taking photos & looking around. This place is really good at looking at wildlife: birds, gators, fish, even otters! We saw gar, a gator, a few squirrels (one of which who fell in the water from the tree), and a few birds.

Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve is a 1.2 mile boardwalk with lots of viewing areas that one can stop and look at nature. You may even see the wildlife we mentioned above.

It only costs $1/hour to park, but the preserve and slough are free! This is one of the highlights of our trip, and definitely a must-see. The slough is close to I-75’s exit and there’s plenty of restaurants to grab food on the go after your hike.

Ford & Edison Estates

We skipped the Ford and Edison Estates this trip since we have been there before, but included it on this list anyway. It is a pleasant place to visit overlooking the water with big grounds. One can also tour the houses inside. Due to current restrictions, check their website for more information on hours and experiences.

Activities in Sanibel Island:

Drive around JN Ding Darling Widlife Refuge

Owned by the Fish & Wildlife Services, one can see nature without leaving the comfort of your car. It is a 4 mile one-way driving road, with options to take a tram tour instead.

Once you pay the $5 entry fee per car, you are free to stop anywhere, as long as you keep to the right. In some of the more notable stops like hiking trails, parking lots are available.

Our stops included the watch tower off the main thoroughfare, the Wulfert Keys Trail, which has great views of the islands located within the preserve, and the Shell Mound Trail. The two trails were less than a mile long, so should take a maximum of 15-20 minutes round-trip from the parking lot.

The Shell Mound trail is made up of an elevated boardwalk, while the Wulfert Keys Trail is paved with small stones and sand. There may be standing water on the Wulfert Keys trail after a rainy day, but it’s not flooded. Excellent views of a small canal and of mangroves on the side of the trail await.

Gene’s Books and Gene’s Books 2

Gene’s Books and Gene’s Books 2 is an independent bookstore in Sanibel Island. Gene’s Books has 3 buildings: the main building has mysteries from all over the world, the second building houses American Fiction, and the third building has World Fiction.

To get to the other buildings within Gene’s Books, one has to find the back door of the mystery building and walk through garden path. The garden path is very peaceful and even has spaces where one can sit and just chill with a book or two.

Gene’s Books 2 is located across the street from Gene’s Books. There are more parking spaces in this location, and we mainly went there to browse the history section.

The history building shares the same space with children’s, Florida, and special interest (sports, fishing, and the like). Their history section is definitely big and vast. Sprawled out across two floors and categorized according to region, one can spend hours just looking for books to read and purchase.

Book prices at Gene’s and Gene’s Books are affordable: they sell mostly brand new books and a few of them are around the $10 mark, even for hardcovers!

Gene’s is one of our favorite bookstores and we’ll definitely be back. We love how the store is organized, making it easy to find subjects that we are interested in.

Lighthouse Beach

Lighthouse Beach is located on the end of Sanibel Island. In fact, you can see the lighthouse from the causeway as you drive in from the mainland.

Note that beaches in Sanibel Island charge a parking fee. The fee depends on the number of hours you choose to purchase. However, with pandemic restrictions, some parking lots may not be open to the public at all.

A Weekend in Fort Myers and Sanibel Island

A lot of these activities we have mentioned above have minimal costs (less than $10 per person) or are free. We also focused more on outdoor activities because the pandemic has ruined a lot of the indoor fun for us, and we want to make our trip a bit more safe.

We travel hacked this trip, so our main cost was gas for the car, and a little outlay for food and some of the activities we mentioned above. Overall, we spent around $70 for two people for the weekend, or less than $20 per person per day. Books bought from Gene’s was not included int he calculation since not everybody may buy something from the bookstore.

While in Fort Myers, we went to eat at Rib City, which is a well-known chain in the area. We don’t have this chain in either the Sarasota or Jacksonville area so we gave it a try. It was good, and we definitely recommend it for lunch or dinner.

Any other suggestions?

Do you have any other suggestions on what else we can see and do in Fort Myers and Sanibel Island? Places to eat? Other activities? Please leave a comment below and we’d love to hear from you.

Weekend Itinerary in Fort Myers and Sanibel Island

Candlewood Suites Fort Myers- Sanibel Island Gateway