Crystal River festivals and annual events
The festivals, parades and annual events worth planning around, month by month, plus the markets that are on every week.
Concerts & shows
Live, ticketed events near Crystal River.
Explore Florida
The natural places worth the drive, any time of year.
Florida Springs
Florida sits on top of one of the largest gatherings of freshwater springs on Earth, and they run a constant 68 to 74 degrees no matter the season. Some are first-magnitude giants pushing hundreds of millions of gallons a day, others are quiet blue sinkholes you can have to yourself at dawn. These are the ones worth the drive: the glass-bottom boat tours, the lazy-river tube runs, the cavern dives, and the winter springs where the manatees come in from the cold.
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Florida State Parks
Florida's park service runs about 175 state parks, and these are the ones worth planning a trip around. Wild barrier islands and sugar-sand beaches, deep springs and dark caverns, 19th-century forts and prairies where bison still roam, from the Panhandle's emerald coast to the coral reefs of the Keys. The definitive short list, not the whole directory.
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Florida Attractions
For much of the world, Florida means the attractions. The theme parks that built Orlando, a working spaceport on the Atlantic coast, mermaids who have performed underwater since 1947, and a coral castle one man carved by hand. This is the big statewide guide to what people fly to Florida for, the giants and the roadside icons alike, from the Keys to the Panhandle.
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The Best Florida Beaches
Florida has more coastline than any state but Alaska, and it spends it well. This is the definitive run: the sugar-white quartz of the Panhandle's Emerald Coast, the shell-strewn Gulf islands you reach by boat, the surf and skyline of the Atlantic, and the impossible turquoise of the Keys. Some you drive to and park; some take a ferry and a plan. All of them earn it. The best beaches in Florida, coast to coast.
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9 placesWild Florida Gulf Coast Beaches
Florida's wildest Gulf beaches make you work for them: some you reach only by boat, others by a long walk past the last paved road. These are the undeveloped barrier islands and protected state-park shores with no resort strip and no high-rise wall, just sugar sand, dunes, shelling, and the kind of quiet you earn. Pack your own water and shade.
14 placesBest Florida Wildlife
Where to see Florida's wildlife up close: manatees, alligators, roseate spoonbills, the Florida panther and the tiny Key deer, across springs, swamps and refuges from the Panhandle to the Keys.
9 placesBest Tampa Bay Breweries
Tampa Bay's beer runs deep, from Ybor City lager houses to a Seminole Heights stout cult with overnight release lines. These are the breweries worth building a crawl around, the ones that earned their name glass by glass.
9 placesPopular Florida Gulf Coast Beaches
These are the Gulf Coast beaches you plan a vacation around: the famous beach-town shores with the pier, the umbrellas, and dinner a barefoot walk away. Easy to reach, lively, and worth the crowds they draw. The classics, done right.
14 placesWild Florida Atlantic Coast Beaches
The Atlantic coast keeps its wild stretches tucked between the beach towns: undeveloped barrier islands, a national seashore, and refuge shores where sea turtles still outnumber people. Walk past the last parking lot at Canaveral and the crowds vanish; wander Big Talbot's boneyard beach where storm-felled oaks bleach white in the surf. No high-rise wall, no boardwalk, just dunes, driftwood, and open ocean. Bring water and shade, and leave South Beach to everyone else.
13 placesPopular Florida Atlantic Coast Beaches
This is the other Florida Atlantic, the one with a soundtrack: beach-town shores where the boardwalk, the pier, and the bars are half the point. Park once and walk to South Beach's pastel lifeguard towers, Daytona's hard-packed sand you can still drive on, Cocoa Beach's morning surf, and Fort Lauderdale's strip of cafes across from the water. Come for the crowds, the people-watching, and the easy day where everything you need is steps from the sand.