Things to Do
The 20 Best Things to Do in Naples, Florida
Twenty things worth your day, ranked by how often we send visiting friends to each one.
12 min read
Things to Do
Naples Museums and Local History, Ranked
Four small museums that between them explain how a mosquito coast became this.
Naples wears its history lightly, which is a polite way of saying most visitors never look for it. That is a mistake, because the story here — Calusa shell mounds, plume hunters, a railroad, a swamp the size of Delaware, and a pier built in 1888 because there was no road — is more interesting than the shopping.
Collier Museum at Government Center
Free, five acres, and the best single hour of context in the county. Mastodons and megalodon teeth, Calusa tools and ceremonial masks, the Seminole Wars, a reconstructed fort, a steam engine, a swamp buggy and a Sherman tank in the back garden. Pack a picnic and use the shade.
Naples Depot Museum
The restored 1927 Seaboard Air Line station downtown, with private rail cars on the siding. Free and small. Go here first if you want the short version of how the winter-resort economy arrived on rails.
Holocaust Museum & Cohen Education Center
Serious, carefully built, and centred on the Boxcar — an original 1940s European rail car. An hour, and consistently the visit people remember longest.
Palm Cottage and the Norris Gardens
The oldest house in Naples, built of tabby mortar in 1895, two blocks from the pier. Docent-led, seasonal hours, and the best surviving picture of Old Naples before air conditioning.
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Things to Do
Taking Kids on the Water in Naples: A Parent's Field Guide
Two hours, one beach landing, before lunch. That's the formula — here's why it works.
6 min read
Things to Do
Artis-Naples and the Baker Museum: The Culture Campus
A serious art museum and a resident orchestra, in a town of twenty thousand people.
6 min read