Hotel Blog

Back

Shell Yeah! Fort Myers is THE Place to Celebrate National Seashell Day1

• May 19, 2017

Calling all beach bums: June 21 is National Seashell Day.
 
And there’s nowhere better to celebrate this auspicious occasion than Fort Myers and Sanibel. So get set for the shell-cation of a lifetime – a getaway that you can completely dedicate to finding hidden treasures on the beach.
 
Fort Myers and Sanibel is famous for its shell-collecting opportunities, due to the amazing numbers of precious gifts that the ocean waves wash ashore onto the region’s beautiful beaches every day. Thousands of beautiful shells arrive each day due to the region’s gentle ways and ideal geography.
 
Shell-seekers throughout the islands and mainland coast are often seen doing what the locals call the ‘Sanibel Stoop’ or the ‘Captiva Crouch’ position as they search for beautiful shells of all shapes and sizes.
 
The destination yields some 400 species of gorgeous seashells, from humble scallops and clams to the exquisitely exotic tulips, olives, fragile paper fig shells. The region is also home to the rarest of them all: the brown speckled junonia, which is considered to be a once-in-a-lifetime find.
 
On National Seashell Day there’ll be special events, lectures, shelling tours, workshops with area shell artists and, of course, 50 miles of pristine beaches to explore.
 
If you can tear yourself away from the beach you should pay a visit to the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum on Sanibel Island, which is devoted solely to shells. This quirky museum is even listed in the famous book 1,000 Places To See Before You Die.
 
You should also swing the Shell Factory & Nature Park, one of Florida’s original roadside attractions. The park boasts that it showcases the “world’s largest collection of rare shells, corals, sponges and fossils from the seven seas,” - that’s some five million shells.
 
Located on a beautifully secluded private beach at the north end of Estero Island, the Best Western Plus Beach Resort is a great option for a Fort Myers Beach getaway. Overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, the hotel boasts white-sand shores (one of the few hotels with it's own private beach), crystal blue waters and lush palm trees, all just minutes from the top attractions in Fort Myers Beach.

Back