Dunedin and Tarpon Springs: the day trip north
· Tampa Bay Drive
North of Clearwater the coast changes character. The high-rises stop, the towns get older, and within about forty minutes of driving there are two places that feel nothing like the beaches to the south — or like each other.
Dunedin
A small downtown of independent shops, a notable concentration of breweries for a town this size, and a walkable main street that has resisted becoming a strip mall.
The reason to go, though, is the causeway. Honeymoon Island State Park sits at the end of it, and it is one of the best beaches in Florida — a state park rather than a developed beach, with pines, an osprey population and sand that has not been engineered. There is an entry fee per vehicle. It is worth it.
From Honeymoon Island a passenger ferry runs to Caladesi Island, which is reachable only by boat and is regularly ranked among the best beaches in the country. Check the ferry schedule before you commit to the day; it is weather-dependent and it does not run late.
Tarpon Springs
Fifteen minutes further north, and a genuine oddity: a town built by Greek sponge divers in the early twentieth century that never stopped being Greek.
The sponge docks are the centre of it. Working boats, sponges actually being sold, and a concentration of Greek bakeries and restaurants that is not a theme — the community has been here for over a century. Eat here. It is the best food on this stretch of coast and it is not close.
Doing it in a day
The order that works is Dunedin and Honeymoon Island first, while the light is good and before the park's parking fills, then Tarpon Springs in the afternoon and an early dinner at the docks.
Honeymoon Island's parking does fill on weekends in season, and once it is full the park closes to new vehicles until someone leaves. Arriving before eleven avoids the problem entirely.
Why this trip needs a car
More directly than most. There is no useful transit link between Clearwater, Dunedin and Tarpon Springs, and the causeway to Honeymoon Island is not walkable. Rideshare will get you to Dunedin and will be an unreliable way to get back from a sponge dock at nine in the evening.
This is the sort of day the Gulf coast is good at, and it is one of the clearest cases for having your own vehicle for the day.