Things to Do in Welaka by Golf Cart: A Local's Route Guide

Last updated August 24, 2026

Welaka is a one-stoplight town on the St. Johns River that calls itself the Bass Capital of the World and has the fishing to back it up. It is small. That is the appeal, and it is also why a golf cart is the right way to see it: everything worth stopping at sits within a few minutes of everything else, and in a car you spend the day parking.

Every road inside town limits is posted 35 mph or under, County Road 309 and 308B included, which means a street-legal cart can use all of them. What follows is a route, not a list.

What is there to do in Welaka, Florida?

Fish the St. Johns, launch a boat at the town's public ramp, walk the trails at the Welaka National Fish Hatchery and Aquarium or in Welaka State Forest, eat at a handful of good local spots, and spend the rest of the time on the water or looking at it. It is a fishing and river town, and it does not pretend otherwise.

The route

This is the order a local would do it, not a list of places sorted alphabetically. Six stops, most of a day, and you can pick it up anywhere.

1. Start with a drive by Sunset Landing

Go look at the water before you do anything else. It is two minutes out of your way and it changes what kind of day you are having.

This is also the moment you find out why a cart beats a car here. You are moving at twenty-five miles an hour with nothing between you and the river.

2. Betcha Bass Bait Shack

Live wild shiners, minnows and worms.

This is the stop people underestimate. A bait shop in a fishing town is the local information desk. Ask what is biting and you get a real answer, usually with directions. Welaka Fish, Crab and Bait at 676 3rd Ave is the other one, and it sells fresh fish and the blue crabs it is known for.

If you brought a boat, the Welaka Boat Ramp on Elm Street is the town's public ramp and the day starts there instead. Where to Launch Your Boat in Welaka has the detail.

3. The wharf

Bryant's Wharf Kayak Launch has a floating dock, a viewing area, and people fishing and shrimping right off it. You do not need a kayak to make it a stop.

Sit for twenty minutes and watch the St. Johns do what it does. In September and October the shrimping crowd works here after dark, which is a different scene entirely. See Shrimping in Welaka.

4. Lunch

Three options and they are genuinely different:

• Lexi's Deli and Cafe if you are not committing to a whole sit-down thing
• Shrimps 'R Us and More for family-style seafood, with big rooms, a covered pavilion, tiki bars and live music. This is the group stop, and the reason to rent the 6-seater.
• Bomba's Home Cooking for the kind of lunch the name implies, after which you will not want to do much for an hour

Park where you would park a car. Where to Eat and Drink in Welaka covers all of it properly.

5. Dinner on the water

Andersen's Lodge has Andersen's Bar & Grill on the river, with food, drinks and karaoke. Boat Bar is inside Welaka Lodge, up on a high bluff over the St. Johns, with beers, wine and cocktails.

Either one puts you on the water at the end of the day, which is the whole point of being here.

6. The night stop

Long's Log Cabin Bar and Package has been a bar since 1929. It is where the day ends.

The package store attached means it also handles the ice you forgot, which is the most Welaka sentence in this entire guide.

Somebody sober drives. Our carts are street-legal LSVs with headlamps, taillamps, brake lights and turn signals, so the ride home after dark is exactly what they are built for. The roads are narrow and unlit in places. Take it slow.

If you have more day than route

• The Welaka National Fish Hatchery and Aquarium, on the river since 1926, with the Beecher Run Nature Trail behind it. Free, genuinely interesting, good with kids or without.
• 40 Acre Park, quiet birding trails through what used to be hatchery wetlands
• Mason Newstead Memorial Downtown Park, lighted tennis and basketball courts, playgrounds, swings and shuffleboard
• Jefferson Smith Memorial Ball Park, ballfield, playgrounds and a basketball court
• The Welaka Dog Park on Orange St., better than it has any right to be in a town this size. Fenced, sunrise to sunset, two separate play areas so a shy dog is not stuck with the confident ones, plus water, poop bags and benches. Plenty of our renters cart the dog over and stay an hour.

Worth the trip, a little further out

Still an easy day, but check the posted limits and remember a cart cannot travel a road above 35 mph.

• Welaka State Forest and the Mud Spring Trail, a 1.7-mile loop
• The Croaker Hole, a spring in Little Lake George that FWC names as a warm-weather hotspot for striped and sunshine bass
• The Bartram Trail, which follows William Bartram's 1770s route along the river through Welaka, Georgetown and Crescent City
• Welaka Pickleball, open play Monday, Wednesday and Friday
• Shrimping the river in September and October, mostly after dark. See Shrimping in Welaka

How long does Welaka take?

Half a day covers the route above at a wandering pace. A weekend lets you fish a morning, do the route in an afternoon and still have a day left. Most people who come once come back for longer.

48 Hours in the Bass Capital of the World lays out a full weekend hour by hour.

Why a cart beats the car here

Everything above sits within a few minutes of everything else, and almost every stop is somewhere you would rather arrive slowly. A cart turns six errands into one loop.

A 4-seater is $80 a day, a 6-seater $95, two-day minimum, delivered charged to where you are staying, free inside Welaka city limits. Every driver needs to be 21 or older with a license and their own auto insurance.