Epic Travel → North America → The South → Florida → Tampa Bay Area → Beach Horseback Ride/Swim

Location: St. Petersburg, Florida

Time Required: 2 hours

Red Tape/Notes: We booked with Cypress Breeze Farm, and the price was $150 per person. Wear water shoes if you have them – you can also go barefoot. Cameras are not encouraged (they only let us bring ours since we’re experienced riders) and must be waterproof. But no worries about having pictures – the guides will take pictures of you and your group and send you the photos after!

What’s Nearby?: Treeumph! Adventure Course, Chihuly Collection

This is a surprisingly fun and different horseback riding activity! You couldn’t pay us to recommend a boring nose to tail ride on the beach, but this is different. It’s not every day you have the option to go horseback swimming. You’ll hop on a well-trained former carriage horse and immediately head off into the shallow water of the bay and make your way to a sand bar, looking for small sharks and other aquatic life in the water. At the sandbar, they’ll encourage you to try standing on your horse’s back; it’s amazing how well behaved the horses are to hold perfectly still while you stand there, but even if they decided to make a break for it, you’d just land in the water so no big deal. Once you’re done at the sand bar, you’ll head off into deeper water for a few minutes of swimming as you make your way back to the shore. If you’ve never done this, it’s extremely cute the way the horses snuffle and breathe heavily as if you weigh a million pounds, and the idea that you’re riding on a horse that’s swimming is pretty neat. Definitely an entertaining way to spend an hour or two!

Epic Travel → North America → The South → Florida → Tampa Bay Area → Beach Horseback Ride/Swim