Gulf coast - Naples, Sanibel Island, Marco Island or Fort Meyers, which one
 

I am trying to plan a trip, with my husband, for January for about five days. I having been reading the threads but some are quite old and talk about washed out and seaweed filled beaches. I am looking for on the beach hotel, resort or inn, with some accessibility to activities (we will have a car) and we have a flight home from Fort Myers.

Naples has gorgeous beaches, great restaurants, and lots to do if you should have uncharacteristic cool weather. This also applies to North Naples/Vanderbilt Beach and to a certain extent to Bonita Beach. We owned a condo in Naples for five years and loved it.

Sanibel is low key and completely non-glitzy but not easy to get to. Captiva is worse to get to.

I like visiting Ft Myers, but I would not base there (the non-historic parts are strip mall suburban). Ft Myers Beach reminds me of some parts of the Jersey Shore.

We are renting in Marco in March though it lacks the high end that Naples has, but it has excellent beaches, and we are renting a house big enough for our extended family at a reasonable price.

Thanks. Naples sounds nice for a first time visitor to the area.

Ackislander has described it pretty perfectly in a brief post.

I like Anna Maria better than any of those.
Low key, low rise, many birds, gorgeous beaches, no attitude.

We like Captiva even though it is a bit tough to get to but convenient to fly in/out of Ft Myers.

Agree about access to Sanibel and Captiva. We hit some road construction leaving Marco Island to Naples that backed up traffic from there to route 41. Heavy tourist plus rush hour traffic can really slow you down in January.

It was easy-peasy to get from Ft. Myers airport to North Naples at around 4:30 p.m. in November. My TR will report getting to the airport on the Friday after Thanksgiving!