Tripping to Sanibel: Some "Insider" Tips On the Most Visited Advisor

Like many vacation rental owners on Sanibel Island (and world wide), we market our properties on our own. We are professionally managed which certainly helps the long distance oversight, but we do put in a lot of effort to bring visibility to both our condo and house on the Island.

We do this in part because we know we will invest more time marketing per property than any agency can possibly do, and we do it in part because we like to. We like keeping some level of communication open with rental guests, feeling that it gives the guest as well as ourselves a greater level of confidence.

We use traditional vacation rental portals to market our places as well as social media. We like to think of the difference as the short tail versus the long tail of an internet search. Yes, we do get many bookings from people who find us on large (and small) vacation rental websites. But we also get good conversation going with people who bump into us on various social media. We don't care which direction an inquiry comes from. All are welcome.

A recent boost in inquiries has been through FlipKey/TripAdvisor. And I just wanted to point out some things a rental guest might want to keep in mind when searching these venues, though most inquiries come from TripAdvisor rather than the newer lesser known affiliate Flipkey.

TripAdvisor, which has featured both our properties in mass emails recently, offers a feature that I think may be a bit obscure but certainly important to rental guests. Not only can you search TA by number of rooms, availability and price, but you can drill down even further. Options to search by number of reviews and ratings by travelers are also available.

Of course it is self serving (we have 24 reviews for our condo and 15 for our house) to suggest that this function be utilized.

But let's face it. Once you know what condo or house is available for your dates, don't you want to know how many people have given your choice a good rating?

I know that information would be important to me!

Noah's Ark and Sanibel a Likely Pair!

As I keep saying, though we have been coming to Sanibel Island for over a dozen years, we have barely skimmed the surface. While there, our vacation rental properties take up most of our time, and the exploring "normal" people do is often out of reach.

So it was no surprise to me when having dinner with friends last night, I learned that there exists a really wonderful place to bargain and treasure hunt that I was not aware of.

Noah's Ark, owned and operated by Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, offers residents and visitors a wide array of reasonably priced, gently used and sometimes brand new, clothes and furnishings.

Proceeds from the shop support a wide variety of ministries of the church and several ministries for women and children. Grants are administered by the board and membership of the Episcopal Churchwomen (ECW).

So purchasing at the shop not only provides an opportunity to buy some great things at a great price, it also provides a benefit to those in need of assistance.

And like the animals aboard the true Noah's Ark, the pairing of Sanibel and such a good place is just about perfect!

Wildlife is King on the Island of Sanibel

In an older post, I wrote about the environment being the school room on Sanibel.


In retrospect, I missed the mark.


The recent and tragic death of a trainer at Sea World made me re-think and re-visit that blog post.


As I wrote in that post, it is true that it is more interesting and more exciting to "study" wild life in the wild. This is easily done on Sanibel through such organizations as the Sanibel Sea School, the Center for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (C.R.O.W.) and the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation. All of these organizations support Sanibel's wild life without trapping and imprisoning any of it. Their goals are to preserve and protect, and in doing so they hold the wild life close and then let it go. Education is important, but not at the expense of taking wild life out of the wild.

Similarly, in another post I created a little more recently, I spoke about how the residents on Sanibel are so hesitant to report on predator animals like alligators as they don't want to see alligators destroyed. Their feeling was, and to a large extent, is that the alligators were there first and the humans should find a way to live in peace with them.

Contrast these philosophies with the theme parks, circuses, and other so-called entertainment venues where animals are kept in un-natural conditions, some times abused and always denied their instincts to be in the wild. Many of these industries claim that this is the way to learn about wild animal behavior, but is it really? Do we need to entrap dolphins and whales to learn how intelligent they are? Or is all of this "education" just a thinly disguised quest for money using these wild animals as currency for get-rich schemes?

The recent tragedy at Sea World certainly points to the inhumane conditions of the confined whale who just did what he does naturally and ended up taking a human life, tragically, needlessly.

I hope that Sanibel's "live and let live" philosophy might be a good model for a world view on wild life. Let it live free. Let it live in the wild where it belongs. There is no good reason not to do so.

Golfing on Sanibel Island: The Links to Heaven on Earth

Best known for its shelling, beaches, birding and wild life, Sanibel is no slouch when it comes to a good game of golf.

The courses are lovely and offer a range of challenges.

The 18-hole "Dunes" course at the The Dunes Golf

& Tennis Club, pictured here, features 5,578 yards of golf from the longest tees for a par of 70 . The course rating is 68.0 and it has a slope rating of 123 on Bermuda grass. Designed by Mark McCumber, ASGCA, the Dunes Golf Course opened in 1973. The Dunes course is rated four stars by Golflink.com charges, based on season, a range of $70 to $110 for the 18 courses. The Dunes has a restaurant open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. for those looking to add some "meat" to their greens!

The 18-hole "Beachview" course at the Beachview Golf Club facility features 6,400 yards of golf from the longest tees for a par of 71 . The course rating is 70.8 and it has a slope rating of 127 on Bermuda grass. Designed by Ray Fenton, the Beachview golf course opened in 1976. Golflink.com rates Beachview 3.5 stars. Beachview Steakhouse & Seafood Restaurant's in-season hours are now in effect. Open for lunch and dinner 7 days per week from 9:00am til midnight. Relax with your favorite beverage from a fully stocked bar while you enjoy the natural Beachview surroundings.

The 18-hole "Sanctuary" course at the The Sanctuary Golf Club facility in Sanibel, Florida features 6,806 yards of golf from the longest tees for a par of 72 . The course rating is 73.0 and it has a slope rating of 138 on Bahia grass. Designed by Arthur Hills, ASGCA, the Sanctuary Golf Course opened in 2005. The Sanctuary Course has earned 5 stars by Golflink.com The Sanctuary Golf Club is a private golf course and does not offer online tee times to the general public but if you know a member, you will find playing the Sanctuary is as good as it gets!

Both the Dunes and Beachview courses are public and are sanctioned by the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses protecting the environment and preserving the natural heritage of golf. Both courses are set among a beautiful natural, island backdrop.

You just might catch a glimpse of an Eagle or Roseate Spoonbill while shooting your best game.