Beaches in Southern Florida Part 1: Atlantic Coast

Florida has a seemingly neverending chain of beautiful beaches. The most basic difference is: Atlantic Coast on the eastern part of the peninsula including the city Miami and Gulf Coast on the western side of the peninsula with the biggest city Tampa. This article introduces some beaches on the Atlantic Coast

Miami and Miami South Beach

The most popular beach on the Atlantic Coast is Miami South Beach, Miami’s City Beach. In fact, South Beach is not part of Miami but belongs to a different town called Miami South Beach. You reach the beach from the famous Art Déco Quarter at the Ocean Drive. The beach has all these typical colorful beach shacks of the lifeguards.

The beach is wide and clean, but quite crowded. Even in off-season quite an amount of people were here, also many posterboys and postergirls from the Ocean Drive. All of them are looking incredibly good, very beautiful, as if they just escaped from a film set. In two days, I saw two photo shootings here. All in all, we spent an entertaining day here.
You can find more information on Miami South Beach in this separate article.

Cocoa Beach

Cocoa Beach is Kelly Slater’s home. They make that very clear, the name is everywhere. This beach has the biggest surfing shop in the world called Ron Jon. Even to us, total non-surfers, seeing the store was interesting. There is also a Surfers Hall of Fame. Cocoa Beach is 100% a surfers’ beach. The beach has a pier with a restaurant in the end of it.

Cocoa Beach is only a few kilometers south of Cape Canaveral. Cocoa and its close beaches (Viera, Melbourne and Titusville) are called the Space Coast.

The beaches closest to Cape Canaveral are Cocoa and Satellite. The Kennedy Space Center suggested these two beaches to see a rocket launch and not pay for the Kennedy Space Center. Both beaches are a bit closer to the mainland (kind of inside) than Cape Canaveral. I can image that you can really see quite well from here.

Daytona Beach

Daytona Beach is north of Cape Canaveral. The beach offers lots of entertainment for children and action, restaurants, a pier and lots of hustle and bustle. Daytona Beach is particularly interesting because of the close NASCAR race track that can be visited.

St. Augustine Beach

St. Augustine Beach is the only beach is clearly different from the others. It’s much less busy, maybe because it is located so far in the north. We were alone at the beach. There is no port promenade, no restaurants facing the ocean and no entertainment. We had food in town. The sand was a bit rougher, kind of gritty and torpedo sand-like. Not bad, not uncomfortable but just a bit different from the more southern beaches.

Similarities of all the Atlantic Coast Beaches

All the Atlantic Coast Beaches have some things in common. They beaches are wide, spacious and nonbuilt-up area. There are wooden piers on which you can walk a bit into the ocean. There are promenades full of restaurants, cafés and entertainment. It’s never really quiet here. The picturesque Ocean Drive as the background of Miami Beach is something that sticks out.

The water is always warm, you can always swim. But, as it is the Atlantic Coast, the water is a bit rough. There are waves and currents. Nothing bad, I would swim there anyways. But all the waves keep coming and get you quite well just standing in the water. You need to be aware of the fact that it’s a surfer’s hotspot and that means the ocean is a bit rough and full of waves.

One thing all these beaches have in common are their water streets everywhere, for example in Cocoa, Daytona and St. Augustine. In Cocoa and Fort Lauderdale, these water streets are everywhere. You can see how ocean becomes land, how saltwater becomes fresh water.

How To Reach These Beaches

All of these beaches can be reached easily by car. All of the mentioned beaches are on islands in front of the mainland. You almost don’t notice that, bridges and roads are everywhere. Sometimes, they charge a toll but you can drive anywhere. The coast road is called A1A and usually leads directly to all the beaches from Miami all the way up north. You can use the A1A as a reference point: this street covers all the small islands, whenever possible (except Cape Canaveral). On the mainland the highway that is closest to the coast is Highway Number 1. It is at the coastal end of the mainland and leads far north. You can see the ocean and all the islands from here.

The Atlantic Coast has close to no empty land: it is mainly covered with bigger cities and smaller towns (the closed area of Cape Canaveral is an exception). There are very few protected areas here, most Florida’s eco projects are somewhere else, for example in the Panhandle up north.

See also Part 2:

The Beaches of Southern Florida Part 2: Gulf Coast

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