Fort Myers – Edison & Ford Winter Estates Museum

The nice thing about road trips (even if I don’t particularly like the “driving” part) is the possibility to flexibly head for sights between two destinations. On our drive from Naples to Sanibel Island, we planned a short detour to the Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers. At first we just wanted to have a quick look, but then we bought an entrance ticket because we liked the facility so much.

The Edison & Ford Winter Estates includes a historical museum, botanical laboratories and a nearly 7-acre botanical garden directly adjacent to the Caloosahatchee River with the winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.

We bought a ticket for 20 dollars each to the “Complete Estates Tour”, which is conducted as a self-guided audio tour. There would also be the possibility to visit only the museum and the laboratories, but I recommend everyone to visit the entire facility. I didn’t like the museum, but the botanical complex and the historic buildings in it are fantastic! With the audio guide you can get a lot of historical and botanical information at selected places. To be honest, I concentrated more on photographing the great facility and listened less to the explanations.

As you can see in the pictures, the winter houses are also nicely decorated inside and show how Edison and Ford ;) had a good time in beautiful Florida. Our stop was definitely worth it and I recommend a visit to the complex to anyone who either likes beautiful gardens or is interested in the life of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. The Edison & Ford Winter Estates website also provides extensive information in English.