Visiting Sarasota, United States: Top Sights on Foot

The best things to do in Sarasota bring together major art collections, circus history, distinctive architecture, theatres, and public art beside Sarasota Bay. The city is worth visiting for the way these different sides fit together, from the Ringling estate to historic downtown streets and lively cultural venues. Neywo offers a free audio guide for Sarasota with 44 narrated places.

What to See in Sarasota

John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is Florida’s official state art museum and one of Sarasota’s essential cultural landmarks. John and Mable Ringling began assembling their collection in the early 1900s and established the museum in 1927 as a gift to the people of Florida.

The building was modelled on the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, with 21 galleries arranged around a central courtyard in a Renaissance style. Its collection contains more than 10,000 objects, including European paintings from the 16th through the 20th centuries. Works by Peter Paul Rubens form a particular highlight, alongside paintings and sculptures associated with artists including Velázquez, Veronese, Bernini, Hals, Poussin, Gainsborough, and Lucas Cranach the Elder.

The museum is part of the Ringling estate, where art, architecture, and the history of one of America’s great circus empires come together.

Cà d’Zan

On the shore of Sarasota Bay, Cà d’Zan was the winter home of John and Mable Ringling. Its name means “House of John” in the Venetian dialect, reflecting the couple’s fascination with Italy.

Completed in 1926, the mansion was designed by Dwight James Baum and built by Owen Burns. Its appearance combines Venetian Gothic, Italian Renaissance, Moorish, and Spanish influences. The waterfront façade is especially elaborate, with Gothic-arched windows and detailed stonework designed to create the impression of a Venetian palazzo viewed from the water.

The house forms the centrepiece of the Ringling Museum’s 66-acre estate and offers one of Sarasota’s clearest examples of the city’s theatrical architectural style.

Circus Museum and Tibbals Learning Center

The Circus Museum and Tibbals Learning Center explores the complete story of the Ringling Circus. Its centrepiece is a detailed miniature display showing the circus arriving by train, setting up, performing, and leaving again, including tiny living quarters for performers.

Original costumes, props, wagons, vintage posters, newspaper clippings, and a real circus train car add context to the collection. At the Tibbals Learning Center, visitors can also try circus-inspired activities, including balancing on a tightrope, entering a clown car, firing a foam bullet, and taking the role of a ringmaster.

Asolo Repertory Theatre

Asolo Repertory Theatre, or Asolo Rep, is a professional non-profit theatre within the multi-theatre complex on the grounds of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. It works with Florida State University’s MFA Acting program and the FSU Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training. The company’s 2008–2009 season marked its 50th anniversary.

Art Center Sarasota and the Chidsey Building

Art Center Sarasota brings exhibitions, learning, and participation together through four rotating galleries and a sculpture garden. Its changing programme offers a way to experience Sarasota’s community arts scene beyond the city’s larger museums.

The centre is also associated with the Chidsey Building, known as the site of Sarasota’s first public library. The library operated there from 1941 to 1976. Its Mediterranean Revival design includes stucco walls, a red barrel-tile roof, and arched openings.

Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall

The Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall stands beside Sarasota Bay and is one of the city’s most recognisable modern buildings. Designed by William Wesley Peters of Taliesin Associated Architects, its sweeping form was inspired by two seashells. The purple and lavender colour scheme was suggested by Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright’s widow.

The hall opened in the late 1960s and is officially known as the Roskamp Auditorium, although it is still widely called the Van Wezel. Its main theatre holds 1,741 seats and hosts productions ranging from Broadway tours and symphony orchestras to rock concerts, ballet, and comedy.

Unconditional Surrender

Along Sarasota Bay, Unconditional Surrender depicts a sailor kissing a nurse in a 25-foot-high sculpture. The work recreates the famous image associated with V-J Day in 1945, when the end of the Second World War was announced.

Seward Johnson created the sculpture, which first appeared in Sarasota in 2005 as a temporary exhibit. After becoming a popular photographic landmark, it received a permanent home along the bayfront in 2023.

Sarasota Opera House

The Sarasota Opera House has been part of the city’s cultural life since the opening of the Edwards Theatre on April 10, 1926. Designed by Roy A. Benjamin in the Mediterranean Revival style, the building originally included shops, offices, furnished apartments, and an orchestral pipe organ.

Its stage once hosted Will Rogers, the Ziegfeld Follies, and Elvis Presley. After closing in 1973, the building was purchased in 1979 by the Asolo Opera Guild, beginning a new chapter in its history.

Downtown historic buildings

Sarasota’s downtown is a useful place to explore the city’s architectural history on foot. The United States Post Office–Federal Building was completed in 1934 in a Neoclassical Revival style. Its west façade features a colonnade with Corinthian capitals, while the interior includes terrazzo floors, brass fixtures, and marble detailing. The building and the nearby Post Office on Ringling Boulevard were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

The Sarasota Times Building, at 1214 1st Street, reflects the city’s 1920s development. Its Mediterranean Revival façade was designed by Dwight James Baum, with stucco walls, cast-stone details, asymmetrical massing, and three different types of ground-floor doors. The building housed the Sarasota Times, which began publishing in 1899.

Other landmarks add further layers to the city’s story. Crocker Church began as a Baptist church in 1901, established by Peter Crocker under the name St. John’s Chapel. Selby Public Library is the first public library established in Sarasota County, opening in 1907, and remains the largest public library in the county.

Florida Studio Theatre

Florida Studio Theatre began in 1973 as a small non-profit company founded by Jon Spelman. Its campus combines five historic structures with the modern Hegner Theatre Wing.

The venue includes the 173-seat Gompertz Theatre, the 109-seat John C. Court Cabaret, the 237-seat Keating Theatre, and the Goldstein Cabaret. The Keating Theatre began life as a church, and its vaulted ceiling and stained-glass details remain part of the building’s character.

A historic museum that is no longer there

The Sarasota Classic Car Museum is part of the city’s recent history, but it is no longer operating at its former site. Founded in 1953 as Horns’ Cars of Yesterday, it was considered America’s second-oldest continuously operating antique automobile museum. Its collection included around 150 vintage cars and motorcycles, alongside displays, arcade games, and a gift shop.

In June 2023, New College of Florida terminated the museum’s lease. The collection dispersed, and the site was redeveloped into the Beruff Family Field of Dreams baseball stadium.

Explore Sarasota with a Self-Guided Audio Tour

A Sarasota self-guided walking tour is an easy way to connect the city’s landmarks without joining a group. Neywo’s free audio guide includes four walking tours and one bus route, with narration available in 11 languages.

The four walks are:

• Boom Town: Sarasota’s 1920s Downtown — 1.62 km, 64 minutes, 10 narrated stops.
• The Ringling Estate: Circus Kings on the Bay — 3.51 km, 79 minutes, 6 narrated stops.
• Courthouse Square to Selby Gardens — 3.03 km, 67 minutes, 6 narrated stops.
• Bayfront Culture: Seashells, Stages and Art — 1.33 km, 38 minutes, 4 narrated stops.

There is also one bus route:

• SCAT 18: Downtown to St. Armands and Mote Marine — 14.8 km, 63 minutes, 7 narrated stops.

With Neywo, each story plays as you reach the place it describes. You explore at your own pace, with no group and no schedule.

Download Neywo for Sarasota

Download Neywo and turn your visit into a narrated exploration of Sarasota. The app covers 44 places through four walking tours and one bus route, from the Ringling estate and historic downtown to bayfront theatres and cultural landmarks.

Sarasota is part of Florida, in the United States. If you are continuing around the state, you can also explore Saint Petersburg, Tampa, Venice, or Orlando.