Naples, FloridaThings To Do
Sunset over the Gulf of Mexico with the Naples Pier silhouetted on the horizon
Itineraries

25 Best Things to Do in Naples, Florida

Naples rewards people who slow down. Here is what is genuinely worth your time, in the order we'd do it.

14 min read · Updated July 2026

Naples is a small city with an unusually high concentration of good days available to visitors. The Gulf is warm and calm, the sand is fine and pale, the downtown is walkable, and thirty minutes in any direction gets you into water or wilderness that feels a century away from the condo towers.

What follows is not a scrape of the top attractions list. It's the order we'd actually put a week together in, weighted toward the things Naples does better than anywhere else on the Florida coast: water, light and long dinners outdoors.

The essential five

  1. 1

    Watch the sun set from Naples Pier

    Old Naples

    Free, nightly, and still the best thing in town. Arrive 40 minutes early, walk out past the bait shop, and wait for the moment the whole pier goes quiet.

  2. 2

    Get out on the water

    Naples Bay

    Everything good about this coast — the passes, the islands, the dolphins, the sandbars — is on the far side of a boat ride. See below for how to choose one.

  3. 3

    Walk the Clam Pass boardwalk

    Central Naples

    Three-quarters of a mile of raised boardwalk through a mangrove estuary, ending at a good beach. Herons, mullet, fiddler crabs and shade.

  4. 4

    Eat stone crab in season

    Citywide

    October 15 to May 1. Cold, cracked, with mustard sauce. Order the claws by size and don't overthink the rest of the menu.

  5. 5

    Spend a morning in the Botanical Garden

    East Naples

    170 acres of Brazilian, Caribbean and Asian gardens. Go at opening, before the heat, and allow two hours more than you think.

On the water

A private charter boat cruising calm water near Naples at golden hour
Gordon Pass at golden hour — the twenty minutes that sell people on this coast.

The honest truth about Naples is that the shoreline is the least interesting water in the county. The good stuff is behind it and beyond it: Gordon Pass, Rookery Bay, the undeveloped west shore of Keewaydin Island, the sandbars that surface at low tide, and the mouths of the Ten Thousand Islands further south.

You have three realistic ways to reach it. A group sightseeing cruise is cheap and fine. A rental boat is flexible if you can read a chart and handle a pass. In between — and where most visitors end up happiest — is a small private charter, where six people and a captain who knows the tide can go somewhere a scheduled cruise never will. If you want the version with a cooler, a swim stop at a sandbar and no strangers on board, a private charter out of Naples Bay is the straightforward way to arrange it.

Beaches, in order of usefulness

  • Lowdermilk Park — restrooms, shade, playground, snack bar. The default with kids.
  • Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park — dune-backed and less built-up, with five lots so you can spread out.
  • Barefoot Beach Preserve — the wildest sand you can still drive to.
  • Vanderbilt Beach — a parking garage in February is worth more than a view in July.
  • Keewaydin Island — boat only, and the reason people buy boats.

Wild Naples

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, 45 minutes inland, is a 2.25-mile boardwalk through the largest old-growth bald cypress forest left in North America. It is the single most impressive natural place in Collier County and it is almost never crowded. Go early, bring binoculars, and check the Audubon sanctuary's water-level updates before you drive out — the wildlife follows the water.

Closer in, Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve protects 110,000 acres of mangrove estuary between Naples and Marco. The learning center is small but excellent, and the kayak launches are the quietest paddling in the area.

Eat and drink

  • Stone crab from mid-October, ordered by claw size, eaten cold.
  • Grouper — blackened, sandwiched, or whole if you find it.
  • A courtyard table on Third Street South for breakfast, before the heat.
  • The Saturday morning farmers market on Third Street South, year-round.
  • Key lime pie, which is either excellent or terrible here with very little in between. Ask for it tart.

Rain, heat and other realities

From June to September, plan the day backwards from the afternoon storm: water in the morning, indoors from two until four, then out again into a washed, gold-lit evening. Storms here are usually violent, localized and over in an hour.

In high season — January through March — the constraint is parking, not weather. Structured garages downtown and at Vanderbilt Beach solve most of it. Everything else is a matter of arriving before ten or after three.

Questions

Frequently asked

How many days do you need in Naples?
Three full days covers the essentials without rushing: one beach day, one water day, one inland or cultural day. Five lets you add Marco Island, Corkscrew Swamp and a proper unstructured beach afternoon.
What is Naples, Florida best known for?
White-sand Gulf beaches, world-class shelling, an unusually good small-city dining scene, golf, and easy access to the Everglades and Ten Thousand Islands by boat.
Is Naples walkable?
Old Naples is — you can cover the pier, Third Street South, Fifth Avenue South and the beach on foot. Everything else, including North Naples and Marco Island, needs a car.
What is the best free thing to do in Naples?
Sunset from Naples Pier, followed by the Clam Pass boardwalk and the Baker Park riverwalk along the Gordon River.
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