Sarasota tourist destination named one of Time’s 'World’s Greatest Places 2024'
Each year, Time magazine puts together a list of 100 of the World’s Greatest Places, and a major Sarasota tourist destination made this year’s rankings.
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens is one of only eight places in the United States included in the list – and one of two in Florida, along with the World Equestrian Center in Ocala. The 2024 list, which covers places to stay and visit, ranges from Maui Cultural Lands in Lahaina, Hawaii, and the Kama African Rainforest in the Republic of the Congo to the Moroccan Culinary Arts Museum in Marrakech, Morocco, and the Saka Museum in Jimbaran, Indonesia.
To compile its list, Time reports it solicited nominations of places, including hotels, cruises, restaurants, attractions, museums, parks and more from its international network of correspondents and contributors, as well as through an application process. While last year’s list featured 50 cities, this year, the list was put together with a focus on places “offering new and exciting experiences.”
In March, Selby placed third in USA Today’s 10Best Readers Choice awards for best botanical garden in the country.
Selby Gardens in Sarasota recognized for sustainability and more
The magazine notes that “Sarasota stands out on Florida’s culture circuit,” and also mentions the Ringling Museum and the Sarasota Art Museum.
It says that Selby’s recent completion of the first phase of a major transformation of the downtown gardens campus “has all eyes on this thriving oasis of banyan trees and mangroves” and notes that it will be the first net-positive energy botanical complex with the recent addition of a 57,000-square-foot solar array.
“A new welcome center beckons arrivals into an open-air structure draped with spectacular air plants that introduce the gardens’ many wonders, including a world-renowned collection of epiphytic orchids, bromeliads, gesneriads and ferns,” the magazine reports.
Jennifer O. Rominiecki, the president and CEO of Selby Gardens, said in a statement that the completion of the first phase of the renovation project “has allowed our organization to be recognized as a global leader for sustainability, as well as an international innovator for botanical gardens, museums, cultural organizations, scientific institutions and restaurants worldwide.”
What is the World Equestrian Center in Ocala?
About the World Equestrian Center, which is included in the places to stay section, the magazine said “the 378-acre, oak-lined campus is the largest equestrian complex in the United States,” which hosts major events that draw athletes from around the world.
The site also includes a new 390-room hotel, The Riding Academy, along with the older “and even posher” 248-room Equestrian Hotel, along with 29 indoor and outdoor competition arenas, pools, luxury toy and clothing bouquets and “restaurants that range from a French-style patisserie and gastro pub with live music to a chophouse, where a master sommelier guides diners through a chateau-worthy wine list topping 6,000 bottles,” the magazine said.
What is Selby Gardens in Sarasota?
Selby Gardens was established in 1973 after the death of gardener Marie Selby who donated land for the “enjoyment of the general public.” The 15-acre downtown Sarasota campus includes a banyan grove, mangroves on Sarasota Bay, a botanical research department and a varied of living collection of plants. It is considered the only botanical garden in the world focused on the display and study of ephiphytic orchids, bromeliads, gesneriads and ferns. It has more than 20,000 greenhouse plants. With more than 35,000 samples, it also has the world’s second largest collection of liquid preserved specimens behind Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in England.
In 2020, Selby Botanical Gardens expanded by adding Historic Spanish Point in Osprey to its operations. The onetime winter home of prominent Chicago socialite Bertha Palmer, the Historic Spanish Point campus was the first site in Sarasota County to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
After opening three new buildings in January 2024, Selby is moving forward two more phases of its master plan that will eventually include new glass houses that will be designed to protect living plants from hurricanes, and a redesign of the path visitors take around the campus.
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota destination named to Time magazine’s World’s Greatest Places