Florida US1 From Jacksonville To Key West

Welcome to Routes 1 and A1A, the dual coastal roads alongside the Atlantic coast between Jacksonville and Key West that lead you on the best Florida seashore highway journey.

U.S. Route 1 runs alongside the jap coast of the United States for greater than 2,000 miles between Key West, Florida and Fort Kent, Maine. Designed within the 1920’s to cowl a route much like that of the outdated Atlantic Highway, it connects the foremost east coast cities in a direct approach that the extra fashionable I-95, which parallels it, doesn’t.

A New York to Florida summer season highway journey (actually a low-cost seashore getaway) occupied two or three weeks in my youth. Today, time-pressed households sometimes discover a shorter stretch of US 1. Focus on the fantastic mixture of Route 1 and Route A1A that snakes alongside the Atlantic coast of Florida from Jacksonville to Key West. The southernmost finish, maybe essentially the most enjoyable drive of all, was constructed because the two-lane Overseas Highway from Miami to Key West within the mid-Thirties and was annexed to US 1 quickly afterward.

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From the Georgia border south, driving US1 will take your loved ones by way of Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Palm Coast, Daytona Beach, Titusville, Melbourne, Fort Pierce, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and all the best way to Key West.

Note the factors the place US 1 separates from the seashore by the Intracoastal Waterway (Florida’s marine freeway). To the east you’ll discover Route A1A, additionally seen as SRA1A (State Road). This smaller coastal highway veers off into the charming little (and large) seashore cities for which Florida is known.

A Family Favorite Florida Beach Road Trip, Especially for East Coast Families

This route can be the federally-designated A1A Scenic and Historic Coastal Highway in addition to a National Scenic Byway. While it modifications names because it programs by way of cities and alongside just a little little bit of undeveloped shoreline, the swaying palms, dune grass and sea grapes, gold sand seashores and glowing waves make it a enjoyable highway journey. However, as a result of a lot of A1A runs alongside Florida’s Barrier Islands, the highway is topic to flooding or different storm harm and could also be closed in components, particularly in the event you’re touring in the course of the summer season hurricane season.

You can customise the experience by selecting a number of of the first household locations alongside the best way (or veering west to Orlando), and spending as a lot or as little time as you’d like at each. If you’ve rented a automotive, you’ll be able to go away it at Key West and fly house, or else backtrack alongside the Overseas Highway to Miami, then leap on I-95 for the lengthy journey north. An excellent useful resource for lodging alongside this route is the reserving.com app since many family-owned properties — some with kitchens, swimming pools, outside play areas and household facilities — use it to achieve a broader viewers.

Our advised 8-day Florida Beach Road Trip itinerary follows:

Day 1: Jacksonville
Day 2: Jacksonville to St. Augustine
Day 3: St. Augustine to Daytona Beach
Day 4: Daytona Beach to Cocoa Beach
Day 5: Cocoa Beach to Palm Beach
Day 6: Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale
Day 7: Fort Lauderdale to Miami Beach
Days 8-10: Miami to Key West

Day 1: Jacksonville

Beginning in Jacksonville on US 1, households who need to keep a number of days have greater than sufficient to maintain them busy. Nestled within the northeast nook of Florida, the place the St. John’s River meets the Atlantic Ocean, town of Jacksonville has two riverwalks full of eating places and retailers, nice museums and a number of other galleries, loads of outside recreation house, and a energetic waterfront that may be toured by watertaxi.

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Families with youthful kids shouldn’t miss the Jacksonville Zoological Gardens, the place greater than 1, 000 animals stay in pure habitats. Metropolitan Park, town’s downtown park, provides many free live shows in summer season. If you’ve been driving for awhile and want one thing much more lively, take the household to Adventure Landing for its amusement rides, waterpark, go-kart racing and teddy bear manufacturing unit. A free trolley circles lots of the essential sights. For extra details about the realm, contact the Visit Jacksonville workplace.

Day 2: Jacksonville to St. Augustine – 41 miles

From Jacksonville Beach, you’ll be able to drive US 1 south to St. Augustine, the oldest repeatedly occupied European settlement within the continental United States. Make time to drive the 72-mile A1A Scenic & Historic Coastal Byway. Follow the two-lane blacktop surrounded by water on a journey greater than 500 years outdated.

By the early 1600’s, the village of St. Augustine had its personal fort, church, hospital and greater than 100 homes and retailers. The Fountain of Youth, a pure spring stated to be found by Ponce de Leon in 1513, is town’s most well-known attraction. Park the automotive on the Fountain of Youth Archeological Park to see displays concerning the indigenous Timucua tribes, a Christian Burial Ground, drink from the fountain and extra. Do you’re feeling eternally youthful?

Walk round St. Augustine’s small historic district to see Spanish missions. To change modes of transport, you can too hail a horse-drawn carriage, be part of a sightseeing practice or hop aboard a guided, sightseeing trolley.

Parents might need to cease in St. Augustine’s Oldest House (the Gonzalez-Alvarez House) courting again to 1727. The children will most likely benefit from the recreation of the Sixteenth-century St. Augustine Old City, the place costumed interpreters are inclined to restored properties and a rustic retailer. Between Thanksgiving and New Years, households can benefit from the annual Night of Lights illumination of the historic metropolis heart. To be part of a ghost tour of the outdated district or perhaps a haunted boat journey, you’ll should spend the night time. For extra details about St. Augustine and the area’s historical past, go to Florida’s Historic Coast.

Day 3: St. Augustine to Daytona Beach – 59 miles

Just an hour south, and proper on A1A, is Daytona Beach, a bustling seashore city recognized for its Sixties Spring Break crowds and the Daytona Speedway. Here, you’ll be able to overlook about navigating US 1 or A1A and proceed your highway journey proper on Daytona’s 17-mile stretch of seashore. Here’s your seashore getaway. Allow time to pause and admire the numerous colourful dune buggies out on the sand. If you don’t have your personal low-rider convertible Corvette, you’ll be able to hire one, or a four-seater ATV or dune buggy, from one of many many native distributors; remember to take a helmet for every rider. Afterwards, hire a chaise and umbrella, or select a secure place to place down your seashore towels and benefit from the heat Atlantic surf.

If you’re in Daytona Beach on a Sunday, take a look at the Drive-In Church.  Established in 1957 when the First Christian Church bought the Neptune Drive-In Theater.  They organized the primary drive-in church service, and now the Drive-In Church welcomes everybody.  You may even put on your seashore apparel to church since you get to remain within the automotive and tune in in your radio or hear by way of the audio system.  At the tip of the service the reverend will come by to shake your palms, after which you’ll be able to hop throughout the road to the seashore or carry on driving.

Search Daytona Beach for vacationer info.

Day 4: The Space Coast — Extraterrestrial Florida Beach Road Trip from Daytona Beach to Cocoa Beach – 95 miles

Then comes the well-known Space Coast, a 95-mile stretch of Florida coast that’s house to the Kennedy Space Center and cities of Titusville, Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, and Palm Bay. If you’re becoming a member of our highway journey after a theme park go to, you’ll see that Orlando is simply 35 miles to the west. This space is a cheap base for a number of days of enjoyable and sand. Depending on the time of yr, select between watching shuttle and rocket launches, browsing or studying the game. Plan on hen watching, golf, recent and saltwater fishing in addition to airboat rides.

The essential attraction for school-age children and fogeys who longed to be astronauts is the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Allow a full day right here to catch shuttle buses and tour the non-public U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. (Book forward to dine with one. ) KSC is house to the Florida department of Space Camp and coaching applications. Live the lifetime of an astronaut with the costly however distinctive half-day Family Astronaut Training Experience. It’s designed for adults and children ages 8 and older to encourage budding astronauts and rocket scientists. Families may also benefit from the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibition, which supplies guests an opportunity to get nose-to-nose with the ultimate shuttle orbiter to fly a NASA mission, Atlantis. 

Space Coast Has More Than Outer Space Attractions

Back on earth on the surprisingly attention-grabbing Brevard Zoo, the youngsters can feed giraffes or kayak alongside the zoo’s river.

A star alongside A1A, Cocoa Beach is a well-liked and good worth city to spend a number of days on your loved ones seashore getaway. There are numerous attention-grabbing eating places and enjoyable spots, together with the well-known Ron Jon’s Surf Shop — the biggest on the planet — the place children can admire the newest surfboard kinds 24/7/365. From the Cocoa Beach Pier, households can watch native surfers paddle out and glide in, or fish the day away. Have a meal within the Historic Cocoa Village, a preserved Victorian-era city constructed alongside the Indian River lagoon that’s a part of the scenic Intracoastal Waterway. Still retaining the mainland in your proper and the slim seashore strip and Atlantic in your left, head south alongside US 1 to considered one of America’s greatest recognized resort areas, toney Palm Beach.

Day 5: Cocoa Beach to Palm Beach – 138 miles

During the two.5-hour-long drive between Cocoa Beach and Palm Beach, you’ll go a number of family-oriented landmarks. At Vero Beach, the gem of Florida’s so-called Treasure Coast, search for the basic Cracker homes courting to the mid-Nineteenth century. Typically white, cedar-or cypress-plank, peak-roofed cottages, the properties of poor plantation farmers are actually thought-about energy-efficient marvels. Hallmarks of the Florida Crackers embrace: oyster shell and lime foundations (to supply shade for chickens and canines who ate the mosquitoes); extensive cracks between the floorboards to flow into air; deep porches and sometimes a middle walkway to create shade; and a number of other home windows to enhance the cross breezes. The Indian River Citrus Museum devoted to the Florida orange-growing enterprise. McKee Botanical Garden options historic sub-tropical plant specimens that improve the genuine outdated Florida really feel; each are closed Mondays.

About 30 miles south and never a lot to take a look at, the city of Port St. Lucie is greatest recognized to household vacationers as the positioning of the previous Club Med Sandpiper resort. Not distant in Jupiter, the non-touristy Busch Wildlife Sanctuary supplies rehabilitative care to over 4,000 sick, injured and orphaned wild animals every year and is the kind of hospital that children will need to tour.

Whether you’re an E.F. Hutton inheritor, descendant of European royalty, or identical to to comply with Donald Trump, it’s price a cease in Palm Beach, particularly throughout “The Season” when the wealthy and well-known flee chilly climate to collect at their yachts and mansions. Visitors should make do with a room on the legendary Breakers, Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton resorts, or one of many many different motels in all value ranges that cater to households.

West Palm Beach’s Fun Activities to Add to your Florida Beach Road Trip

While bustling West Palm Beach, inland on US 1, attracts a youthful crowd, this engaging Mediterranean fashion metropolis on Route 1 has loads of swimming swimming pools, a protracted sand seashore, and pure sights that give households just a little little bit of that south Florida, tropical really feel.

Start on the 500-acre John D. MacArthur Beach State Park on Singer Island. Here, a secluded seashore provides alternatives for beachcombing, swimming or watching nesting turtles between May and August. Ask for a brochure from the character heart so you’ll be able to hunt for gumbo-limbo, strangler figs and three sorts of mangrove bushes, in addition to butterflies, toxic crops and large spiders.

The Cox Science Center and Aquarium additionally provides outside nature trails in addition to a planetarium, aquarium, observatory and miniature golf course. If you’re staying a number of days and touring with youthful kids, they’ll take pleasure in time on the Palm Beach Zoo at Dreher Park in addition to the extra industrial Lion Country Safari, a drive-through “game park” that’s most enjoyable in the course of the morning lion feeding periods. For extra info from the Palm Beach Tourist Office, go to their website.

Day 6: Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale – 47 miles

On the best way south to Fort Lauderdale, pause for conch fritters at any of the seafood shacks alongside the Intracoastal Waterway or make a detour to Hollywood Beach to stretch your legs or bike alongside the 2½-mile oceanfront Boardwalk. This space is full with outside cafes and quite a lot of up to date condos and old-style motel lodging. The 3½-mile-long Pompano Beach, with play areas and ongoing household festivities, is at all times lively too. Most households heading into Lauderdale will have already got their resort picked out, as that is considered one of Florida’s hottest household resorts and advance reservations are beneficial.

The palm-fringed, gold sand Fort Lauderdale Beach is a very long time favourite. Explore the mangrove-lined shoreline, infinite rivers, canals, lakes and ponds the place households can discover dolphins, manatees, ospreys and pelicans. It’s a really perfect seashore trip vacation spot if your loved ones is eager about deep sea fishing or watersports, as a result of services are plentiful and well-priced for individuals who need to water or jet ski, parasail, be part of a canoe or kayak tour, scuba dive or snorkel — even study a more recent sport corresponding to kite browsing or paddleboarding (stand-up paddling on longboards).

This can be a spot to go to The Everglades, a various natural world ecosystem that covers 750,000 acres of southern Florida. From Everglades Holiday Park, your loved ones can be part of a guided airboat skimming throughout the highest of the water by way of the “River of Grass.” After presumably viewing alligators and child crocodiles, waterfowl and eagles of their pure habitat, you’ll be able to catch the superb alligator present again on the park.

Fun and academic shows of wildlife might be discovered on the industrial Butterfly World/Tradewinds Park and at Flamingo Gardens. Or, you could desire the character trails at Hugh Taylor Birch State Recreation Area, or need to attempt mountain biking in Fort Lauderdale’s Markham Park. In this massive metropolis, there are fixed leisure choices, too, from buying at a myriad of malls, to outside cultural performances, summertime kids’s camps, and superb artwork museums, together with the Museum of Science and Discovery, a kids’s museum and kids’s theatre. If you’ve bought a Michael Phelps within the household, take a look at the International Swimming Hall of Fame.  Get extra journey details about Fort Lauderdale on the Visit Fort Lauderdale web site.

Day 7:  Fort Lauderdale to Miami Beach – 28 miles

The transient drive south from Lauderdale to Miami alongside US 1 presents a colourful array of outdated and new Florida sights, with slow-moving site visitors, key lime pie retailers, Jewish delis, Cuban cafes and at all times, sun shades and bathing swimsuit retailers. The metropolis of Miami is a superb household vacation spot as a result of its particular mix of Latin and European influences makes for an thrilling multi-cultural panorama, nice museums and eating places, and fantastic buying.

For most road-trippers, although, that is the time to open the sunroof and cruise east throughout the MacArthur Causeway, that lengthy, low bridge that connects the mainland to the well-known barrier island of Miami Beach. Driving previous the pastel-colored Art Deco resort towers and beach-bums in flipflops on the sidewalks of Collins Avenue (additionally A1A) is as shut as you may get to the seashore at this level, however at 1st Street — the south finish of the well-known South Beach (or SoBe strip) — you’ll be able to flip east towards the seashore and drive north on Ocean Drive. This two-lane highway is a part of A1A and is town’s most well-known half-mile stretch, the place everybody will benefit from the people-watching. You might spot a mannequin being photographed on the sands of Lummus Park, a rock star out for a stroll, or an infinite cruise ship leaving the Port of Miami. This busy stretch of gold sand (and the wild curler rink in MacArthur Park) are fairly “the scene.” During the winter excessive season or any weekend night, we suggest that you just park on Washington, one avenue inland, after which stroll alongside Ocean Drive. Or you’ll be able to park at one of many Deco motels and make this your loved ones seashore getaway.

The must-see is the Art Deco District of South Beach, a complete neighborhood comprised of untamed and colourful Twenties and ’30s structure. Start your strolling tour of the registered National Historic Landmark district on the Miami Design Preservation League (1200 Ocean Drive; 305/672-2014), the place maps, guided excursions and souvenirs can be found. These are the blocks that come alive at sundown, when the world’s lovely individuals and those that take pleasure in watching them take up their seats at each sidewalk cafe and resort bar. The FIU Wolfsonian Museum close by homes a unprecedented design assortment, from early twentieth century to Art Deco and past, that older children will take pleasure in seeing.

Plan a meal or a buying spree on the Deco thoroughfare that runs perpendicular to the seashore, now the pedestrian-only, seven-block-long Lincoln Road Mall. All ages will benefit from the sidewalk cafes, retailers, galleries, avenue performers and public fountains – once more an excellent individuals watching spot to be. A worthwhile detour even for individuals who aren’t stopping in Miami is the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables, a spectacular 820,000-gallon pool shaped from a rock quarry in 1923. With two waterfalls, coral caves, grottos and stone bridges, the spring-fed Venetian Pool sees almost 100,000 guests yearly.

From a base in South Beach or the neighboring, family-freindly neighborhoods of Miami, Coral Gables or Coconut Grove, your loved ones will take pleasure in a few of Miami’s south Florida basic sights. Allow time to see Jungle Island, Zoo Miami, Butterfly World, the attractive Vizcaya Museum and Gardens on Biscayne Bay, and the Miami Seaquarium marine reveals. Interact with the cool displays on the new Frost Science Museum and Planetarium.

Pause for some croquettas and cafe con leche to organize children for a go to to Calle Ocho. The neighborhood is Miami’s “Little Havana” the place the delicacies and tradition of the pre-Castro Cuba nonetheless thrives. More info and particulars might be discovered at MiamiAndBeaches.com.

Days 8-10: Miami to Key West – 160 miles

No matter how a lot or how little time your loved ones spends in SoBe, you gained’t have accomplished the US 1-A1A journey till you’ve ridden it to the southernmost level within the United States: Key West. The Florida Keys lengthen south of Miami in a string of slim limestone and mangrove islands bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. You can rush down this National Scenic Byway to Key West in about 3.5 hours or take every week and savor it slowly. Note that the majority addresses are written as MM; the “mile marker” indicators start close to Florida City at round MM 127 and descend to MM 0, website of the Green Parrot Bar (“The 1st and Last Bar on US 1” their signal proclaims) in Key West. Whoever invented this method anticipated that backseat passengers would sometime ask, “Are we there yet?” and fogeys might inform them to see for themselves.

Of course, you don’t should drive all the best way to Key West to understand the bohemian attraction of lots of the Keys communities. The first main key you’ll attain after Key Biscayne (nearly an extension of Miami Beach) is Key Largo, house to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park a famous diving spot, the National Marine Sanctuary, Molasses Reef, and the underwater caves of French Reef. Each space is thought for its wrecks and the luxurious coral reef formations and marine habitats which have developed among the many ship’s ruins.

The signage turns into denser and the seashores grow to be leaner as you attain Islamorada, the self-styled “Sport Fishing Capital of the World”. You can’t miss the enormous brown lobster outdoors the Treasure Village present store or the fountains crashing over the illuminated signal of Theatre of the Sea, a marine amusement park with animal reveals and items galore, on little Windley Key. Slow down and luxuriate in a number of the glitziest sights within the Keys, in addition to Cheeca Lodge & Spa with ith its elegantly furnished household condos or The Moorings Village and Spa.

A bit south on Duck Key, Hawk’s Cay Resort is a vacation spot for a lot of Florida households, who like its setting between the bay and the Atlantic, with docks and seashores on each side. This property is bisected by artifical canals, the principle swimming pool has a pirate-themed waterplay space, visitors can swim with dolphins, and the household cottages are standard with bigger household teams.

Driving south from the very industrial and developed Marathon Key is Grassy Key, the place you’ll be able to see a statue of what appears like Flipper. Indeed, that is the place the unique pet dolphin movie “Flipper” was shot within the Nineteen Fifties. It is alleged the bones of the late star are buried underneath the sculpture. Almost any turnoff alongside A1A has a narrative.

The Florida Keys owe their years of prosperity to Henry Flagler, the visionary railroad magnate who determined in 1912 he would lengthen his Floridian Overseas Railroad to the tip of the nation. To the west you’ll be able to see the unique roadbed for the railroad (destroyed way back by a hurricane) and the well-known Seven Mile Bridge (truly 6.9 miles), which has been damaged in locations to permit taller ships to cross by way of. You can stroll or jog down the northern finish from Marathon reaching out to Pigeon Key, an islet to the west of the not too long ago constructed freeway that could be a Florida Heritage landmark due to its authentic conch homes.

See More on Your Florida Beach Road Trip within the Lower Keys

At about 128 miles south of Miami are the Lower Keys, the area greatest recognized for scuba diving and snorkeling spots. The MS Looe, which ran aground in 1744, is the centerpiece of the Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary and a magnet for tropical fish.

An uncommon cease is on the National Key Deer Refuge about 30 miles north on Big Pine Key, the one official North American house of the tiny Virginia white-tailed deer. You’ll additionally see many automobiles pulled over the shoulder of the slim highway in order that kayakers and canoers can unload their boats and discover the dense mangrove hugging the roadway. Most of the Keys’ shoreline is damaged coral however there’s a lovely sand seashore on the 500+ acre Bahia Honda State Park the place you’ll be able to snorkel, kayak, fish, camp, hike and bike.

And, all of a sudden, fashionable suburban malls seem and also you’re approaching the outskirts of Key West, itself a well-preserved enclave of two-story Victorian homes and conch cottages clustered alongside Duvall Street. Allow at the very least a day in the event you’ve pushed this far, to style key lime pie, present the youngsters the enjoyable retailers, colourful locals, deep sea fishers who spend their days consuming and pirate museums. You’ll need to be part of the road performers and artisans who flip the well-known sundown celebration at Mallory Pier right into a carnival, simply since you’ve come this far.