The Essentials
Club: Sarasota Paradise
Stadium: Premier Sports Campus — 5895 Post Blvd, Lakewood Ranch, FL 34211. Seats around 3,000+. A soccer-specific stadium inside a massive 140-acre multi-sport campus about 20 minutes east of downtown Sarasota. Open-air, modern, and surrounded by more athletic fields than you can count.
Tickets: Available at tickets.sarasotaparadise.us. No formally designated away section — visiting fans typically cluster in general admission.
Nearest Airport: Sarasota-Bradenton International (SRQ), about 15 miles west of the stadium.
Driving from Fort Wayne FC Park: ~1,100 miles via I-75 S, roughly 17 hours nonstop. Atlanta is the natural overnight stop if you’re splitting it into two days.
Parking & Transit: Free parking on-site with 40 acres of lot space — you won’t have trouble finding a spot. No public transit to speak of out here. Rideshare works, but most people drive.
Weather: March through October is hot, humid, and punctuated by afternoon thunderstorms that blow through fast. Sunscreen is mandatory. A packable rain jacket earns its spot in the bag.
Where to Stay
The Sarasota Modern in the Rosemary Arts District is the best boutique option in town — 89 rooms, a rooftop pool, and walkable to downtown’s best restaurants and galleries. For a solid mid-range pick closer to the stadium, the Homewood Suites by Hilton Sarasota-Lakewood Ranch puts you minutes from Premier Sports Campus with free breakfast and suite-style rooms that work well for families. On a budget, the Hampton Inn Sarasota I-75 Bee Ridge sits right off the interstate and splits the difference between downtown and Lakewood Ranch without overpaying.
Eat & Drink
Owen’s Fish Camp on Burns Court is the one place you don’t leave Sarasota without eating. It’s a Southern seafood shack tucked under a banyan tree that Thomas Edison gave to the city, with live music in the backyard and a line out the door most nights. Put your name on the waitlist early and don’t overthink it — get the fried shrimp or whatever’s fresh off the Gulf.
For the best sit-down dinner, Indigenous on South Links Avenue is the call. James Beard-nominated chef Steve Phelps runs a hyper-local, responsibly sourced menu that changes with what’s available. It’s serious food in an unfussy room.
Calusa Brewing on McIntosh Road is the brewery to hit — a big taproom with 36 lines, a great in-house kitchen called PigFish, and rotating food trucks on the weekends. It’s the kind of place where you settle in for a few hours.
The morning after, Der Dutchman in the Pinecraft neighborhood is an experience as much as a meal. It’s an Amish-run restaurant and bakery in Sarasota’s small but thriving Amish-Mennonite community. The breakfast buffet is enormous, the cinnamon rolls are legendary, and the whole vibe is wonderfully unexpected for a Florida beach town.
Things to Do
Siesta Key Beach has sand so white and fine it feels like powdered sugar — consistently ranked among the best beaches in the country, and it earns it. Go early and stay through sunset. The Ringling Museum is Sarasota’s cultural crown jewel — a 66-acre complex with a world-class art collection, a circus museum, and Ca’ d’Zan, the Ringlings’ 36,000-square-foot Venetian Gothic mansion on the bay. Unlike anything else in Florida. For something active, Myakka River State Park is 37,000 acres of wetlands, prairies, and canopy walkways about 30 minutes east — rent a kayak or hike the trails and you’ll forget you’re near a city.
The One Thing
Get to Owen’s Fish Camp before the dinner rush, grab a drink at the bar, and wait for your table in the backyard under the banyan tree. Live music, fried seafood, cold beer, warm night air. It’s old Florida at its absolute best, and it’s the thing you’ll tell people about when you get home.