Port Charlotte is a city in south Florida that is located both inland and along the coast, as odd as that sounds. Compared to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it is a few miles inland, but since a small branch of the Gulf stretches into the mainland of Florida in the form of the Charlotte Harbor Estuary, it is also on the coast. Port Charlotte sits directly along the northern edge of Charlotte Harbor and is slightly northwest of the neighboring city of Punta Gorda. This location is about 100 miles south of Tampa and slightly more than half that distance north of Naples. A medium-sized city, Port Charlotte has about 50,000 permanent residents.
Since the city is on the water, Port Charlotte vacation homes offer opportunities for boating, fishing, and other water sports such as jet skiing and water-skiing. Many people find that the water activities here are superior to those on the Gulf, since the Charlotte Harbor Estuary provides a semi-sheltered body of water where conditions can be easier than they are on the open ocean that characterizes the Gulf of Mexico.
The climate in Port Charlotte is classified as humid and subtropical on the Koppen scale, but conditions are close to those typical of a 'tropical wet and dry' climate. This means that summers tend to be long, with frequent afternoon thunderstorms providing a break from the heat of the day. Winters, in contrast are mild yet warm and feature substantially less precipitation than does the summer. The average daily temperature varies by less than 20 degrees year round, making Port Charlotte ideal for vacationers all year long.