When planning a trip it is wise to consider when high season is to establish when low season comes into swing and also when hotels and travel will be less expensive. For example peak season in Saratoga Springs in upstate New York turns a sleepy little cosmopolitan destination to a boisterous hot spot in what seems like the blink of an eye during thoroughbred horse racing season. I have personal experience when my husband and I moved from Orlando, Florida in the month of May to Saratoga Springs we were advised to secure our accommodation as quickly as possible as all open housing would be swiftly taken. Orlando was slipping into its own low season while Saratoga Springs was gearing up for the main event in July and August.

During high season finding a seat in a quality restaurant without reservations is like an amateur trying out with Olympiads for a major event and it will only result in disappointment.  You wouldn’t attend a concert or a sporting event without a ticket/reservation and the same can be said of limited seating in restaurants in the height of the season. Even on sunny Sanibel Island on the Gulf of Mexico we have high and low seasons.

We started visiting in June several years ago and we were warned about how hot Florida can be. Well here’s a news flash, Sanibel isn’t on the mainland of Florida it is an island, which as far as I have experienced wasn’t any hotter than Tidewater, Virginia or Charleston, South Carolina in the summer. What made it exceedingly fine for me and my husband was that it was low season and so we felt like we had our own little paradise where the natives were pleased to see us arrive. No lines to wait in for a seat at our favorite restaurant and no congestion on the 22 miles of paved bicycle paths. Absolute perfection, perspiration in summer is a normal bodily function, if you’re not sweating in June than you are either on the arctic tundra or you may be a walking zombie.

After all our visits to this exceptional tropical oasis, how thrilling it was when we were able to drive across the causeway not for vacation but for our new life on the Gulf of Mexico. While high season is presently in full swing here on the island and even on the mainland with plenty of visitors from colder regions we’ve learned that walking or biking to the grocery store will always be a quicker alternative to sitting in traffic. Making dinner reservations at our favorite restaurants is a breeze too; it simply means that the staff that knows us by name will have our cocktails as soon as they seat us and I couldn’t ask for more.

We have many visitors to the island at this time of year and while we may forgo the car for a stroll down the bike path for dinner out, we are also pleased to meet so many nice people who wait all year for this special time. So many of the visitors we meet were introduced to the island via their grandparents and they themselves are continuing the tradition with their own children.  Some accidents bear repeating like Roquefort cheese, tonic water, French fried potatoes, champagne and trying a new destination for vacation even if it is low season.