Shopping in Orlando

Orlando Shopping

Visitors from as far away as Britain and Brazil have been known to arrive in Orlando with empty suitcases for their purchases. Although shopping has all but disappeared from downtown, the metro area is filled with options. There really is something for everyone—from high-end fashion to outlet-mall chic, from the world's largest flea market to a boutique-filled town, from an antique treasure to a hand-hewn Florida find.

The east end of the Lake Ivanhoe area of College Park is an antiquer's dream, with more than a dozen small shops (including an antiques store-restaurant) running south from Princeton Street along North Orange Avenue.

The simultaneously glitzy and trashy International Drive has almost 500 designer outlet stores and odd, off-brand electronics shops. The factory outlets on the north end of the Drive once consisted of shops with merchandise piled on tables; today the shops here are equal to their higher-priced first-run cousins. The strip also has plenty of restaurants, and, for those in your group who don't feel like shopping, movie theaters.