Florida is shaped by water.
The state has more than 8,000 miles of coastline and is home to more than 1,000 freshwater springs; more than 18,000 square miles of wetlands; more than 7,500 lakes, ponds and reservoirs; and 12,000 miles of fishable rivers, streams and canals.
All of that water means a lot of swimming, splashing around, fishing and boating in the summertime.
And one of the biggest boating holidays, Labor Day, is coming up on Sept. 1, which also marks the unofficial end of summer in the U.S. and the last three-day weekend of the summer.
Ahead of Labor Day, online boat tour booking platform BoatBooker released a list of the best small towns for crowd-free boating in the U.S. Of the top 15, seven were in Florida.
Here are the Florida towns that made BoatBooker’s list of the best crowd-free boating locations in the country.
When is Labor Day? Is Labor Day a federal holiday?
Labor Day weekend is a sort-of counterpart to Memorial Day weekend and the last three-day weekend of the summer. Many people in the U.S. see Labor Day as the unofficial “end of summer,” which unofficially begins on Memorial Day in May.
This year, Labor Day will fall on the first of the month, Monday, Sept. 1, 2025. Labor Day always falls on the first Monday of September and is one of 11 annual federal holidays.
Best boating destinations: Top crowd-free boating towns in Florida
To find the best crowd-free boating destinations in the U.S., BoatBooker concentrated on towns with fewer than 20,000 residents located near bodies of water.
To rank the best peaceful boating spots in the country, BoatBooker explored Google Maps using phrases like “Secluded Boat Ramp,” “Hidden Boating Spot” and “Quiet Marina,” focusing on locations with fewer than 100 Google reviews.
The number one ranking went to Kelseyville, California, next to Clear Lake State Park, about an hour and a half northeast of Santa Rosa.
Second place went to Niceville, situated on the Choctawhatchee Bay, just over an hour east of Pensacola.
Third place overall went to Osprey, a town with a population of just under 6,000 on Florida’s Gulf Coast, about 15 minutes south of Sarasota.
Here are the five other Florida towns that made BoatBooker’s top 15 best towns for crowd-free boating:
Top crowd-free boating towns in the U.S.
Here’s BoatBooker’s list of the top 15 best towns for crowd-free boating:
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Beat Labor Day boating crush at 7 Florida towns ranked best in US to avoid crowds
Reporting by Lianna Norman, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
