The picture most people have of a Florida winter is a beach. The picture that is actually here is a lake, and it is the better one.
You are up at 7 because the light is good and the air is 70 degrees. The dock is cold enough that your feet are actually cold, which is the point. Coffee on the dock, the water is flat because there is no wind, and the only thing moving is the boat. This is the version of a winter morning that makes the trip worth it, and it is the version you cannot get on a crowded beach.
A boat morning, an early lunch, an afternoon that does not have to be planned. The houses we manage all have space, which in the winter means space to actually be in. A table in the middle of the room, a game, a book, a nap. The lake is ten minutes away if you want to be back on the water.
The winter dinner scene is the good one. Cob & Pen in the 1927 Tudor house does its late dinners, Black & Brew does its breakfast the next morning, and Nineteen61 does the reservation dinner that is worth planning the week around. If the week includes a show at RP Funding Center, the dinner is the pre-show move and the house is the post-show one.
The local tip: the winter weeks are the only weeks of the year when you should book the house first and the activities second, because the house is the scarce thing and the activities are all still open.
Send us your dates. We manage seven houses on and around Lake Lakeland and we will match you to the one with the right dock, the right size, and the right price for a winter week.