North Captiva Island: A Florida Barrier Island Thanksgiving

Palm trees, sandy beaches, wide open ocean view: the iconic image of paradise

UPDATED: 1/22/2023

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To celebrate a milestone birthday for my dad, a group of us - me, Dustin, my dad, my sister, her husband, and their 21 month old daughter - decided to take a trip to mark the occasion. Due to my dad’s birthday falling in early December, we elected to make it into a Thanksgiving adventure.

But where would we go? Somewhere warmer than Virginia was a operative requirement and finding a place that could accommodate a group with a child. My sister enjoys the beach and had suggested North Captiva, a barrier island off of the west coast of Florida. I had never heard of it and immediately wondered what South Captiva was like - but um yeah, there is no South Captiva. Instead, there is Sanibel island to the south in addition to a number of other barrier islands strung along the coast.

Our research into North Captiva uncovered an intriguing travel destination. For the most part, the island is your typical beach community with an assortment of houses ranging from large mansions to small bungalows and many of them are available for rent. What sets this island apart is that there is no road connecting it to the mainland and furthermore no cars are allowed on the island! Getting around involves walking or riding in golf carts! The feel of cruising down sandy paths with the ocean breeze in your hair (or in Dustin’s case scalp) and without the need to watch for cars was absolutely worth the hassle of getting to the island.

Speaking of getting to the island, the most challenging aspect of the trip was planning the logistics to get to the island and hauling enough groceries for the week. Haul groceries? Yes, besides a small convenience store, there is no grocery store on the island.

From Washington-Reagan airport, our best flight option (time and price) was to Tampa. Dustin, my dad, and I traveled together. Given the time required to drive from Tampa, get groceries on the mainland, and then catch the ferry during its operating hours, we spent a night in Fort Myers which is about 2 hours south of Tampa. We arrived in Fort Myers later in the day and only had time to eat dinner and check into our hotel. We stayed at Courtyard Marriott Fort Myers and found it to be a comfortable night’s sleep.

Grassy dunes protect the island from waves and storms…. most of the time.

The next morning we headed out to buy groceries and catch the ferry. Dustin and I are used to shopping, cooking, and eating for two so planning food for our entire party was interesting to say the least. Weeks before our trip, with the help of my sister, we coordinated and developed a lengthy grocery list to feed 5 adults and one toddler for 7 days. To make things even more difficult, we had to plan for a Thanksgiving meal so needed a turkey and all the other standard fare we have come to expect for that holiday.

You don’t realize how much you take for granted simply popping out to the grocery store when you need food. When planning for this trip I found myself calculating even mundane supplies like how many pieces of sandwich bread we’d need for 6 people for 7 days and then wondering how many slices of bread are in a typical loaf. Its moments like these that Google is amazing in its ability to answer the weirdest questions.

We had researched in advance the best grocery store to shop at and discovered that a Publix in Cape Coral is the closest and best stocked option as well the fact that they are used to bagging groceries for those headed to the islands.

This is the only part of the trip where we very nearly learned some lessons the hard way, although we lucked out in the end. We learned that:

Grocery shopping in an unfamiliar store with a multi-page grocery list takes much, much longer that we’d expected.
Because it takes much longer, you start looking at your watch, panicking that you’ll miss the ferry, which is still a little drive away, and start cutting corners. (We don’t really need THAT.)
Upon getting to your rental car carrying 3 adults and all their luggage for a week, you realize that no law of nature says that all those groceries will fit.

In the end, we made it to the ferry just in the nick of time, the groceries fit in the car when we piled them high on our laps and in every crevice, and the few decisions we’d made to cut out food worked out okay in the end due to a combination of restaurants and a small market that had just the basics on North Captiva.

I’d say that my sister lucked out having us stuck with the grocery shopping, but I’m sure traveling by plane, car, and ferry with a toddler is no walk in the park on the stress-o-meter.

A Sandpiper combs the beach at low tide.

We used Island Girl Charters as our ferry to the island. The trip is about 30 minutes and was a pleasant ride with a collection of tourists and locals. I’d highly recommend booking your ticket in advance to ensure you get a seat on the boat. They only run every few hours so you don’t want to get stuck waiting.

Once on the island, we were met by the local caretaker of the house we had rented through Homeaway, called Manatee Haven. They pulled up in golf carts to carry us and our luggage back to the house. The distance was about 0.7 miles, and dragging suitcases in sand would have been miserable.

Sometimes you need to narrow your field of view to see the beauty right under your feet. Shells of all shapes, sizes, and colors can be found if you are willing to look closely.

We spent the majority of the trip lounging. The house we rented had a pool and hot tub, the island was also good for walks or golf cart adventures. The local market, Mango’s, was an easy walk to stock up on the basics as well as beer. I went for runs most days and found myself winding around on the sand roads as well as running along the ocean for portions. I wish you could walk around the entire coastline, but there isn’t a route around the perimeter of the island as roughly half of the island is uninhabited.

We went to Barnacle’s for dinner the first night and had a pleasant experience eating outside. We also went there for lunch the day after Thanksgiving, which was a bad idea. At that point, we were basically out of food. The restaurant was jam-packed due to several tour boats docked in the harbor. We waited for something like 2 hours before getting a table, and then probably another hour before we got our food.

One day, we also took a chartered boat with Boats & Fun on a private tour. The captain had some great stories and also knew where to find manatees, so we went to a few spots and saw a few snouts peek above the water. Manatees are endangered so great care is taken to observe without becoming overly intrusive and scaring these ocean mammals. On the journey the captain even enticed several dolphins to frolic in our wake; granted, I’m not sure this is a terribly difficult task as they seem to do this regularly.

On the way home he took us to Cabbage Key, another barrier island, where we had a delicious lunch outside at Cabbage Key Restaurant before journeying back to North Captiva.

The final challenge on this trip was coordinating times to make it back to the airport. Since the earliest ferry doesn’t leave North Captiva until 9:30 am (off-season and on a Saturday), and we had a two hour drive to Tampa Airport we needed to find a flight a little later in the day.

North Captiva was fun to visit. We enjoyed getting away from the mainland and having a hiatus from the bustle of everyday life. There are many recreational things to do on the island - lounging along the beach, searching for birds and other wildlife, shelling, jet ski and boat rentals, and charter boats for wildlife observation or fishing. If you want a relaxing time, this is definitely a good option. And you can’t beat the warm weather as a winter respite from colder climes!