Located 50 miles south of Tampa and over the bridge from Bradenton, with its buzzing downtown district and artists community, Anna Maria Island and its neighbouring Longboat Key have been offering the tropical idyll for more than a century. In the last decade, Anna Maria Island has been lauded as an exemplary example of how sustainable tourism should be done. Anna Maria Island is an authentically Floridian town, where folk live life locally. There are no high-rise hotels, condos or big chain names out on the island – instead, you can stay at low-rise beach-front motels or colourful clapboard houses and support independent businesses.
Of course, behind every great sustainable town is a loyal community who love it. Ed Chiles, owner of The Sandbar bar and restaurant, and island native the late Michael Coleman created the Pine Avenue Restoration company. Over the past ten years, they completely revamped the once-derelict Pine Avenue and turned it into the vibrant heart of the island – still keeping its sun-bleached Floridian vibes. Dubbed ‘the Greenest Little Main Street in America’, they set about rebuilding the 1930s clapboard homes and businesses on Pine Avenue authentically, but with modern, energy-saving materials. They replaced the concrete sidewalks with paths of crushed shells and built an island-wide rainwater collection system.
At the heart of Pine Avenue is the Historic Green Village, Florida’s first Zero Net Energy shopping and arts district. British couple Lizzie and Mike Thrasher – who fell in love with the island while on holiday in 2005 and quickly made it their home – built the village around three century-old homes. Now this ‘solar business district’ has an art gallery, a gift shop and a bakery, all locally owned and run, plus free recharging stations for electric vehicles.