In the past, Sandestin Florida was a quiet beach town with a handful of hotels, restaurants, and bars. But this summer, the area will become the home of a vibrant new residential community, bringing many more residents to the area.
Sandestin Florida is a wonderful place for families to go on vacation. It has many amenities, and one of the best ways to enjoy them is to rent a golf cart and explore the area. At the same time, it is also possible to take a tram tour of the Beaches. However, the best way to enjoy everything Sandestin has to offer is to do it yourself. Let's answer some pertinent questions visitors ask.
These questions are;- How far is Destin Florida from Sandestin Florida?
- What celebrities live in Destin?
- What is the best month to go to Destin Florida?
- Why is Destin so popular?
If you want to visit Sandestin, you have to decide how far you want to drive. If you want to walk to the beach, but don't want to go too far, your best bet is to stay in one of the Destin vacation rentals.
Sandestin is located in Northwest Florida on the Alabama border and is only two hours away from Destin, which sits just off the end of 30A.
If you want to stay in one of Sandestin vacation rentals, you can look around and see what you like best from the selections available.
If you’ve ever dreamed of living like a celebrity, the Destin area is a great place to start. Located just off the Gulf of Mexico in northwest Florida, Destin is home to many celebrities who vacation here, and it’s also a popular destination for many others.
For comparison, the region is only about 90 minutes from Fort Walton Beach and about 2 hours from Panama City. The area is also home to many top-tier golf courses and is a popular spot for celebrities to play.
Music and movie stars like Britney Spears, Sheryl Crow, Jessica Simpson, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and Keith Urban all have homes in Destin.
If you're planning a trip to the Florida Panhandle, you're probably wondering when is the best time to visit. The short answer? Any time of year is good, but if you want to avoid the crowds and save some money, November through February is your best bet.
The peak tourist season lasts from mid-December to mid-April, and during those months, you'll pay much higher prices for hotels, meals and even local attractions.
If you're looking to save money, avoid the cold winter weather and enjoy some peace and quiet, consider visiting from November to February.
Destin’s underwater population is still one of the best in the world and has many attractions that keep visitors glued. It is situated close to the Gulf of Mexico, Northwest Florida, and is known as the world’s luckiest village.
Destin also harbors some of the best world-class resorts and rentals – and some of the best shopping and dining anywhere.
The best 25 things to do in Sandestin Florida
1. Destin X Parasailing - Departing from Destin Harbor
Parasailing is one of the best things to do in Sandestin Florida. The parasail departs from Destin Harbor and flies across Florida.It has an experienced captain and crew with the thrill of flying high also on the side. The emerald green waters below are also a beautiful sight to behold for visitors.
The parasail flies high at 300 feet above ground level. Up to three people can fly at once and Destin can be viewed at a bird’s eye level. The duration of the flight is 1 hour 30 minutes.
2. Sandestin (Destin) Fine Dining Dinner and Dancing Cruise
Destin’s only fine dining entertainment yacht. It has a feature of fresh Seafood from the Gulf, well-prepared beef, and lots more. All of these are offered in a full-service galley. There is also live entertainment and a bar filled with varieties to boost visitors’ delight and experience. The dinner and dancing cruise is also one of the best things to enjoy in Sandestin.
The yacht is the only one in Northwest Florida and it offers an opportunity to cruise the Choctawhatchee Bay. There is also a top observation deck for stunning views of the area and there is also live entertainment and a full bar.The cruise takes three hours.
3. Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park Admission Tickets
Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park offers education and entertainment. There's a view of trained animals like dolphins and sea lions performing shows like jumping. Animals are there to captivate visitors who want to have fun seeing good sights.
Penguins, stingrays, pelicans, dolphins, and sea lions are all available to be seen in Sandestin. The park can be found in Fort Walton, a few minutes away from Destin Harbor.
The park is a fine place to spend a good time relaxing and enjoying nature’s splendor. There are also wildlife experts providing educational seminars and lectures on animals.
4. Osprey Pointe
One of the best places to stay in Sandestin, it gives good and comfortable accommodation for visitors. It has spacious 2, 3 and 4-bedroom units for tourists. The bedrooms have an exquisite touch of interior designs and signature amenities.
You can have fun just swimming or staying in the heated pools or having a good view from the balcony. There's a lush setting, and the beach also offers a perfect ambiance for the enjoyment of moments.
5. Hotel Effie
Hotel Effie sits between the beautiful and white sandy Sandestin beaches and emerald green waters of the gulf coast. It is also near Choctawhatchee Bay.
It is a full service four-star 250-room hotel accommodation with gourmet dining and a full-service spa. It is the only rooftop pool in Northwest Florida.
6. Baytowne Marina
Baytowne Marina has a row of ships sitting gently on the calm waters. The Marina makes the beautiful sunset nature’s delight with the cruise done at the end of the day one of the best done.
It has a 123-slip marina and there are many games to play on the water. There are light tackle fishing charters, pontoon boat rentals, wave runners, and YOLO SUP boards. There are also lures, poles, and hooks for fishing adventures.
7. Beach and Watersports
The Sandestin beach is one of the best in Florida and it offers chances to have watersports on the waters. A couple of games, friendlies, and many other activities go on in the waters while the warm winds of the beach are a beautiful time for summer on the white sandy beaches.
Sandestin has some of the best sites and places for these activities as it is beautiful to see. Paddleboards are all available for some of these activities as they help engagement.
8. Fitness Center
The fitness center at Sandestin helps visitors keep fit with an all-round readiness. They have some of the best equipment to use and fitness is particularly taken keenly due to the high level of activities going on in Sandestin FL.
9. SunQuest Cruises - SOLARIS Dinner Cruise
Rated for great service delivery and respectful staff, they have great good, with delicacies available for as many people as desirous of taste. It is a greatly entertaining and premier dining yacht in Sandestin. It includes a three-course dinner and live entertainment.
There are three decks on the SOLARIS yacht and its first has good control of climatic conditions with a good presence of Mahogany in the interior. The third is an open-air deck for viewing the awe-inspiring scenery at the Choctawhatchee Bay.
10. Bark Park
It's a safe place to stay for dogs with a very clean environment that ensures the health of the dogs is in good condition. As families go about having their fun, their pets also enjoy their time at the bark park with care by some of the best professionals./
11. Baytone Carousel
Adventures are built at the Carousel as your children enjoy some of the best times of their lives. Located in the village of Baytowne Wharf, the carousel sees children lighting candles in festive moods and enjoying music as much as possible.
12. Bike Rentals
A visit to Sandestin, FL without bike rentals is an incomplete one. A two-wheeled tour of the area gives some of the best sights to behold. Landscaped grounds are seen on one of the resort bicycles in the area.
The bikes come at affordable prices and can be rented daily, weekly, or for the whole duration of a visit.
13. Blast Arcade and Laser Maze
With more than 60 redemption and video games at Blast, it offers great prizes. You have to be on your best imitation at the Blast Arcade and you pretend to be like a good easier as you wade through the Laser Maze.
Don't forget to go see Rootin Tootin in the Blast Em Shooting Gallery. There are also soaker frogs in the gallery.
14. Club KZ Children's Program
Children make new pals and learn new things at the Club KZ. With entertaining and educational programs, children have lots of fun time to themselves as they also meet new people.
15. Dunes Putting Course
The Dunes Putting Course offers you a miniature golfing experience that is excellent to see. Your skill will be tested on an adventurous par-51 course.
It has 18 lush landscapes and contour holes. These challenging par 2, 3 and 4 holes measure 25 to 60 feet in length and incorporate sand traps, water hazards, fairway mounding, elevation changes, and unexpected man-made "breaks."
16. Golf
There are four golf clubs in Sandestin that can offer some of the best-golfing experiences anywhere in Florida. The clubs are the Link Golfclub, Baytowne Golf Club, Raven Golf Club, Burnt Pine Golf Club.
There are also hosts of others like a junior golf club, golf shop, and the golf academy. The game is one of the most enjoyable for tourists with new connections and friends made at golf sessions. There are attentive and active caddies also available for golfers.
17. Jolee Island
Jolee Island offers the services of a good lone time. You want to have a good time to yourself just relishing and having a good view of your environment, Jolee Island is the place to be. You can also plan a picnic and cookout with some of your friends on the five-acre nature park lush with Florida scrub and pine.
The Island is within Sandestin Resorts and has been rated as excellent by most travelers. It has a beautiful nature trail and playground and has excellent imagery of the sky’s reflection on the waters. It's situated along the Choctawhatchee Bay in Walton County.
Jolee Island is situated on Miramar Beach and has a wooden bridge that connects the island to the main section of Sandestin resort and acts as a passageway into Northwest Florida. The bird-song starts the moment your feet hit the island, as do the crickets whistle and the breeze rustling through the pines.
There's a gravel path that leads around the outskirts of the island revealing wooden play areas, picnic tables, bench-swings, and a nautical playhouse right on the Bay.It is some splendid sight to behold.
18. Paddleboards
Paddleboards offer you water sports and lots of other activities like YOLO time with your partners and the kids. There are softer and safer boards for the kids, and the paddling can be done while standing or sitting or even on your knees.
It offers skill levels for all ages of tourists, and the by is explores a stroke at a time.The sport comes with an agile response and a good desire to win. There's also a lot of fun to be had from paddle boarding.
19. Spa Sandestin
Spa Sandestin’s extensive menu varies from favorites like de-stress, deep tissue and sports massages, body treatments including the head-to-shoulder Sandestin Splurge, and facials to cleanse, tone and relax. Tourists easing off from months of long work come to Spa Sandestin to get freed from the stress loads of the past times.
It is one of the best places to be for adult tourists, both males, and females, and is enjoyable to have at every point in time.
20. Spitfire Bait Shop
Spitfire doesn't spitfire. Don't be let off by the name. Oh! No baits will get sold to you from the bait shop. It's just the place to be before going out on that charter to get live worms, shrimp, shiners and crickets, lures, and hooks.
Tourists can also rent or buy single fishing poles and pre-packaged fishing kits for children and adults and of course get hot tips on what lures and bait are working best with local fish. So you see the name is just the name? The baits are for fishes, not you, beautiful tourist.
21. Annual Sandestin Events
You may plan your visit to Sandestin to fall in any of the events that are specific for certain days every year. Tourists who have a prior idea of this check out for the events and never miss out on it because it offers nothing but fun.
Check the events below;
February
- Sandestin Gumbo Festival
- Mardi Gras Dog Parade
- Fat Tuesday Baytowne Bash Parade
March
- SunQuest Cruises - St. Paddy's Day Cruise
April
- SunQuest Cruises - Easter Lunch Cruise
- Sandestin Wine Festival
- Sun Belt Golf Championships
May
- Memorial Weekend Events
- SunQuest Cruises - Mother's Day Cruise
June
- SunQuest Cruises - Father's Day Cruise
- Emerald Coast Blue Marlin Classic
July
- 4th of July Red, White, and Baytowne Events
- SunQuest Cruises - 4th of July Fireworks Dinner Dancing Cruise
August
- Sandestin Triathlon
September
- Labor Day Weekend Events
October
- Baytowne Wharf Beer Festival
- Endless Summer Songwriters Series
- Duck Regatta
- Trick or Treat Street at Baytowne
November
- Baytowne on Ice
- SunQuest Cruises - Thanksgiving Lunch Cruise
- Sparkling Wine & Holiday Lights
- There Comes Santa Clause
- 12 Nights of Lights
December
- BTee Off For Toys
- Tub Christmas & Holiday Lantern Parade
- Gingerbread House Decorating
- New Year's Celebration - Fireworks
- SunQuest Cruises - New Year's Fireworks and Dinner Cruise
22. Burnt Pine Golf Club
The Burnt Pine Golf Club is on the Northwest coast of Florida and it offers one of the best experiences of golf in Sandestin FL. With a masterstroke layout designed by one of the best hands in the industry, its rolling fairways and strategically placed bunkers invite golfers to have an ln extensive feel of the course.
Ethereal views along the Choctawhatchee Bay highlight the back nine, while the front side brings golfers through the pine forests and wetlands of the Emerald Coast. It sits beside Sandestin's Raven Golf Club and it is the only place in the world where Rees and Robert Trent Jones Jr. courses meet.
Described as the "Crown Jewel of Florida Golf" by Golf Magazine, twice recognized as one of the "Top 30 Courses in Florida" by Golf Digest, and named three times to Golfweek's list of "America's Best Resort Courses", Burnt Pine is a place to be for golf-loving tourists and visitors to Sandestin.
23. Destin Offshore Charters, Sandestin, Florida
Enjoy some of the best fishing experiences in Destin on the Destin Offshore Charters, Sandestin, Florida. It offers full and half-day fishing trips where you get varieties of fishes.
Destin is the world’s luckiest fishing village for a reason. Some of these fishing charters are; Party Boats Destiny and Destin Princess, Scream Dragg Fishing Charters, Silver King Charters of Destin, Charter Boat Backlash, Fat Flamingo Fishing Charters, Reel Salty Fishing charter and others. They all offer wonderful fishing charter experiences.
24. Pole Position Cruises and Charters, Sandestin, FL
Located behind Marina Cafe, Destin, Florida, Pole Position Cruises is a cruising delight. It has a dockside dining where passengers enjoy their meal and have great water views. There are opportunities to schedule a dinner cruise while there's also a sunset private dinner cruise.
There are private fishing charters in the cruise with overnight concert cruise keeping you active through the night. Pole Position puts passengers in pole position with offers of many excellent activities.
25. The Village Door, Sandestin, Florida
A family-friendly restaurant in the village of Baytowne Wharf, Sandestin Florida, it has great appeal and atmosphere. If you are looking to experience tasty seafood and barbecue in a comfortable atmosphere, The Village Door Dockside Restaurant is where you will want to be!
It offers a range of services that keeps it good and ahead and it is the best of its kind in Sandestin. Home to many delicacies of beauty and spice, it has been rated one of the best in Florida on many occasions.