Egmont Key Tickets

Islands, Dolphins &
Hotels across Tampa Bay

At the mouth of Tampa Bay sits a mile-long island you can only reach by boat — Egmont Key, where an 1858 lighthouse still burns, a Spanish-American War fort crumbles photogenically into the Gulf, gopher tortoises own the paths, and the snorkeling runs over sunken gun batteries in clear green water. This guide books the island properly — the Fort De Soto ferry, the snorkel-and-dolphin cruises, the rules of a wildlife refuge — and then builds out the bay around it: Shell Key's sandbar wilderness, the dolphin fleets, Clearwater's rescue aquarium, the Dalí, Busch Gardens' coasters, and the beach-resort row from the pink palace of St. Pete Beach to Clearwater's sugar sand.