Dunedin: a walkable downtown, a state park and the oldest brewery in Florida

Dunedin is one of the few places in Pinellas County with a downtown you would describe as a downtown. Main Street has storefronts, restaurants and bars at a walkable scale, the Pinellas Trail runs directly through it, and on a nice evening it is busy on foot rather than by car.

Honeymoon Island

West of town, the Dunedin Causeway leads to Honeymoon Island State Park, one of the most visited state parks in Florida. It has Gulf beaches, a slash pine forest with an osprey trail, and shelling that is better than most of the developed beaches to the south.

The island got its name from a 1940s promotion offering honeymooning couples a stay in thatched bungalows. The name outlasted the bungalows.

Caladesi Island

From Honeymoon Island, a ferry runs to Caladesi Island State Park, which is reachable only by boat. That inaccessibility is the entire point. Caladesi has repeatedly been ranked among the best beaches in the United States, and because there is no causeway, it never gets the crowds that ranking would otherwise produce.

Baseball and beer

The Toronto Blue Jays have held spring training in Dunedin for decades, which is a long relationship by the standards of Florida spring training. The ballpark is close to downtown.

Dunedin Brewery, founded in 1996, is the oldest operating craft brewery in Florida, and the city has since accumulated enough others that the walkable downtown and the trail through it are genuinely convenient.

Getting there

The Pinellas Trail makes Dunedin reachable by bicycle from much of the county. Parking downtown fills on weekend evenings and during spring training.

Cover photo: Christopher Hollis / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). Source.