Hello friends,

This amazing place is the largest of the Ten Thousand Islands. It is located at southern tip of Florida's Coast.

Marco Island is home to some of the world's most beautiful beaches and offers world-class golf courses nearby, shopping and dining on Marco Island and in nearby Naples.

Tourists come here to enjoy beautiful beaches, for fishing, shelling, and to see dolphins. We wanted to go collect shells from one of the islands but all the spots on the boat were taken, so I guess another time. If you decide to go there make sure to book the boat in advance.

There is a historical museum that works during the week days, we couldn’t visit it because we came during the weekend.

We got lucky though to visit Otter Mound Preserve, you can read about it here Otter Mound Preserve

We enjoyed the beach right next to the hotel where we stayed. It rained a little in the afternoon, but it wasn’t too bad. There was a wedding ceremony happening right in front of the beach, and then it started to rain. Poor bride and bridesmaids, I can imagine how stressful it was for her.

Although we didn’t go to Ten Thousand Islands to collect beautiful shells (sigh), I collected a few of medium size on our beach.

On the first morning I wasn’t brave enough to go in the water, I just checked it with my feet. Kids played a bit with the board, but soon said they were getting cold. So we went to the swimming pool. They told me that this water was hot compared to the beach’s. When I went there it didn’t even feel room temperature to me, but soon I got used to it, and was happy.

Next morning we went to the swimming pool first, and then decided to get warm laying on the beach. While kids were playing I went to try water temperature again, it was the same as it was the day before, but looked so tempting. There was no waves, seaweed, or jellyfish like it is in our area. The water was clear, I could even see a big fish near the shore.

So I decided to risk, and shock my body with cool water. To my surprise after 5 minutes I got used to it and was able to enjoy cool “bathtub”. Then I called my kids and husband telling them how nice the water was. I’m glad we tried to swim in the Gulf of Mexico, because I don’t know when next time we can come here again.

We were staying at Hilton hotel. It’s a really nice hotel, with good service, and great location. The breakfast wasn’t included, and was kind of pricey, but there was a choice of using a buffet or menu. Buffet turned out to be a better deal, with more choices of unlimited tasty treats like muffins, waffles with whipped cream, fruits. You can’t get that with a menu. I mean you can, but then you end up paying for each food item.

For lunches and dinners we went to some local restaurants, sometimes we had leftovers that we saved for later. One day we went for a lunch to some Brewery. We got bruschetta as an appetizer, that was really good.

Kids ordered pizza, and we ordered tacos. I ordered ahi tuna tacos, thinking of mahi-mahi fish. When I saw raw tuna fish in my tacos I was praying that everything would be ok with me on the next day😅.

I avoid eating undercooked meat or seafood, unless it’s sushi rolls but even then I don’t eat it often. My tacos were huge and had a lot of fish in it, so I ended up leaving some of it🙈.

There was another funny experience on this trip when we stopped by Cracker Barrel, on our way to Marco Island. The food looked suspicious to me, so I didn’t finish my burger. The plates that were brought for the biscuits were soaked with water, like they just got rinsed, and had some crumbs on them. I didn’t tell the waitress because was afraid of something worse than that on my order that I was waiting for. My husband agreed with me that it was unusual for this good restaurant.

When we drove around Marco Island, we saw a beautiful blooming tree with red flowers. I’ve never seen flowers like that before, so we stopped to take some photos. I found out that its common name in the US is Royal Poinciana.

I couldn’t stop taking photos because it’s just something else. I mean I still can’t forget blossom cherries from our last trip to Tennessee, and here we go another stunning tree with lots of bright flowers on it.

This tree is noted for its fern-like leaves and flamboyant display of orange-red flowers over summer. In many tropical parts of the world it is grown as an ornamental tree and in English it is given the name royal poinciana, flamboyant, flame of the forest, or flame tree.