Boating & Waterfront

Nowhere in America attaches boats to ordinary houses like Southwest Florida. Cape Coral's roughly 400 miles of canals put lifts and docks behind everyday single-family homes; Punta Gorda Isles offers deep sailboat-access canals with no fixed bridges to Charlotte Harbor, Florida's second-largest natural harbor; Marco Island's canals open onto the Ten Thousand Islands backcountry; and the Caloosahatchee gives Fort Myers boaters a route west to the Gulf or east across the entire state via the Okeechobee Waterway. Marinas and dry-stack storage in Naples, Fort Myers and Burnt Store cover everyone else.

The buying rules are local and specific: gulf-access versus freshwater canal, bridge clearances, minutes to open water, dock and seawall condition, lift capacity, flood insurance. Get those right and the payoff is a life where the boat is transportation, entertainment and therapy at once.