63 Best Sights in Northeast Coast, Florida

By day this historic pier is a good place to stroll—if you don't mind weatherworn wood and sandy, watery paths—and watch surf competitions, as the water here is a popular surf spot. By night visitors and locals—beach bums and surfers among them—head here to party. Weekends see live music.  The pier is also a great place to view launches from Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral.

The world's first oceanarium was constructed in 1938, 18 miles south of St. Augustine. This National Register of Historic Places designee, now part of the Georgia Aquarium, has come a long way from marine film studio to theme park to its current iteration as dolphin research, education, and entertainment center. The formal dolphin shows are history, but you can have a far more memorable experience with interactive programs that allow you to swim with and feed the animals or become a dolphin trainer for a day. Programs start from a simple "touch-and-feed" option and are as elaborate as a super-expensive "trainer for a day." General admission allows you to observe the dolphins through 6-foot-by-10-foot acrylic windows. The 1.3-million-gallon facility is home to 13 dolphins, and until 2014 the park housed Nellie, the longest-lived dolphin in human care until her death at the age of 61. A new calf, Coquina, was born shortly after Nellie's death. Other exhibits feature native Florida marine life such as tarpon, sharks, spotted eagle rays, and giant sea turtles, as well as historical artifacts dating back to the park's inception as a nautical movie studio.

The nation's first Ripley's museum is, appropriately enough, in a historic structure—Castle Warden, an 1887 Moorish Revival–style mansion. Like its younger siblings, this odditorium is packed with plenty of unusual items including Robert Ripley's personal collections; a mummified cat; a death mask of Abraham Lincoln; a scale model of the original Ferris Wheel created from an Erector set; and life-size models of Robert Wadlow, the world's tallest man, and Robert Hughes, the world's fattest man.