722 Best Sights in Florida, USA

Although the 200-foot towers look really scary, the ride itself is just kind of scary (but still pretty cool). Several sets of four chairs wrap around the tower, and you and three fellow guests are seated and strapped in just out of the sight of other riders before the disembodied voice of Dr. Doom tells you the contraption is designed to extract fear he'll collect to use and rule the world. Without warning, all the chairs are rocketed to the peak, which jump-starts a surge of adrenaline as it rises, falls, rises, and falls again in a very brief, but quite thrilling, experience.

Often it's easy enough to have a second go, as you can actually step off and get right back into line again. Guests who are pregnant or have heart, back, neck, or motion-sickness problems should sit this one out. For people with disabilities: Guests using wheelchairs must transfer to a ride vehicle. The line moves fairly fast, though it's crowded early in the day; come late or use Express Pass.

Next to Louie's Backyard restaurant, this tiny beach—the only one in Key West where dogs are allowed unleashed—has a shore that's a mix of sand and rocks. Amenities: none. Best for: walking.

Hawks Cay Resort's Dolphin Connection offers three programs, including Dockside Dolphins, a 30-minute encounter from the dry training docks; Dolphin Discovery, an in-water program that lasts about 45 minutes and lets you kiss, touch, and feed the dolphins; and Trainer for a Day, a three-hour session with the animal training team.

The 1963 movie Flipper popularized the notion of humans interacting with dolphins, and Milton Santini, the film's creator, opened this center, which is home to a colony of dolphins and sea lions. The nonprofit center has educational sessions and programs that allow you to greet the dolphins from dry land or play with them in their watery habitat. You can even paint a T-shirt with a dolphin—you pick the paint, the dolphin "designs" your shirt.

Programs begin with a get-acquainted session beneath a tiki hut. After that, you slip into the water for some frolicking with your new dolphin pals. Options range from a shallow-water swim to a hands-on structured swim with a dolphin. You can also shadow a trainer—it's $350 for a half day or a hefty $630 for a full day.

If you can't make it out to see Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas National Park, this is the next best thing. Opened in 2013 by the national park's official ferry commissioner, this free attraction in Key West's Historic Seaport has an impressive (1:87) scale model of the fort; life-size figures, including one of the fort's most famous prisoners, Dr. Samuel Mudd (who was involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln); and a Junior Ranger station for the little ones, with hands-on educational fun. The exhibits are housed in a historic site as well: the old Thompson Fish House, where local fishermen once brought their daily catch for processing.

Take a look at how life once was at this modest pioneer outpost dating from 1898. Renovated to repair hurricane damage to its structure, it's a picture of life before South Florida became a resort area. Sitting atop an ancient Jeaga mound 20 feet high and looking onto the Jupiter Inlet, it has Cape Cod as well as Old Florida design. It's in Dubois Park, worth a visit for its lovely beaches and swimming lagoons. Docents lead tours Tuesday and Thursday, 10–1. The park is open dawn to dusk.

In the 1960s, Dudley Do-Right was recognized as the well-intentioned (but considerably dim) Canadian Mountie who somehow managed to always save the damsel and always "get his man" (that is, foil the villain). But you don't need to be familiar with this character to enjoy this "waterlogged" attraction. The twisting, up-and-down flume ride through the Canadian Rockies begins with your mission to help Dudley rescue Nell, his belle, from the evil, conniving Snidely Whiplash. Tucked inside a hollow log, you'll drift gently down the stream before dropping through the rooftop of a ramshackle dynamite shack. After an explosive dive into a 400,000-gallon lagoon, you're not just damp—you're soaked.

If the weather is cold or you absolutely must stay dry, pick up a poncho at Gasoline Alley, opposite the ride entrance, and store other items in a locker. This isn't suitable for guests who are pregnant, experience motion sickness, or have heart, back, or neck problems. For people with disabilities: Guests using wheelchairs must transfer to a ride vehicle. Come in late afternoon, when you're hot as can be, or at day's end, when you're ready to head back to your car or hotel.

Based on the movie about the gigantic-eared baby elephant who learns he can fly, the ride consists of flying pachyderms, each packing a couple of kids and a parent. A joystick controls your Dumbo's up-and-down movement. A popular feature for parents and children: the Big Top "play while you wait" indoor area chock-full of climbing equipment for kids of most ages. As you enter the colorful circus tent, a Disney "ringmaster" hands you a pager that buzzes when it's your turn to join the ride queue. Parents can supervise tots in a small circus ring of play equipment while older kids burn up energy on multilevel climbers like the Thrilling Tower of Flames. Adults enjoy the bench seating. For people with disabilities: If using a wheelchair, prepare to transfer to a ride vehicle. This is a great place to visit in the afternoon when kids may need to run around and parents may need to sit down. Let the kids enjoy the play area before riding.

This well-meaning, circa 1990, ride is looking (and even smelling) a little tired, although you might still get a kick out of the take on Steven Spielberg's E.T. Once Spielberg himself advises you that it's your mission to help E.T. return to his planet, you board a bicycle mounted on a movable platform and fly 3 million light-years from Earth, past a squadron of policemen and FBI agents, to reach E.T.'s home. Here colorful characters climb on vines, play xylophones, and swing on branches in what looks like an alien Burning Man festival. Listen very closely for the payoff: having given your name to a host at the start of the ride, E.T. is supposed to bid you a personalized good-bye.

This ride isn't suitable for guests with heart, back, neck, or motion-sickness problems. For people with disabilities: Guests with mobility issues must be in a standard-size wheelchair or transfer to a ride vehicle. Service animals aren't permitted. There's some sudden tilting and accelerating, but those for whom these movements are a concern can ride in E.T.'s orbs (spaceships) instead of on the flying bicycles.

ECHO is an international Christian nonprofit striving to end world hunger via creative farming. The fascinating 90-minute tour of its working farm takes you through seven simulated tropic-zone gardens and has you tasting leaves, exploring a rain-forest habitat, visiting farm animals, stopping at a simulated Haitian school, seeing urban gardens grown inside tires on rooftops, and learning about ECHO's mission. Although the group is faith based, the guides are far from preachy, and the organization is all-inclusive, equipping and training people regardless of their beliefs.

If you have time, consider also taking the Appropriate Technology Tour. Slightly shorter than the basic farm tour, it's held in a covered facility where you'll see simple but ingenious contraptions that solve everyday problems in the developing world, like pressing seeds and making rope (spoiler alert—one involves a bicycle-powered saw). The ECHO Global Nursery and Gift Shop sells fruit trees and the same seeds ECHO distributes to impoverished farmers in 180 countries. Check the website for tour schedules.

If you can tear yourself away from the sand and sea, there's a lovely green alternative just a few miles inland at the restored home of lumber magnate William Henry Wesley. Tours of the mansion are given throughout the day, and furnishings inside the spacious rooms date from as far back as the 17th century. The surrounding grounds—the perfect setting for a picnic—are beautiful year-round, but they're nothing short of spectacular in mid-March, when the azaleas and dogwoods are in full bloom.

Some of the 250,000 acres of the Eglin reservation are conditionally open to the public for hiking, mountain biking, swimming, canoeing, and fishing. To gain access, you must obtain a permit from the Natural Resource Division (also known locally as the Jackson Guard). The reservation has 21 ponds and plenty of challenging, twisting, wooded trails.

In the middle of the mouth of Tampa Bay lies the small (350 acres), largely unspoiled but critically eroding island Egmont Key, now a state park, national wildlife refuge, national historic site, and bird sanctuary. On the island are the ruins of Ft. De Soto's sister fortification, Ft. Dade, built during the Spanish-American War to protect Tampa Bay. The primary inhabitants of the less-than-2-mile-long island are the threatened gopher tortoise and box turtles.

The only way to get here is by boat, and you can catch a ferry from Ft. De Soto, among other places; area operators include Hubbard's Marina, Dolphin Landings, and Island Boat Adventures. It's well worth the trip—the beach here is excellent for shelling, secluded beach bathing, wildlife viewing, and snorkeling.

No Palm Beach mansion better represents the town's luminous legacy than the Spanish-style home built by Addison Mizner as his own residence in 1925. Mizner later sold El Solano to Harold Vanderbilt, and the property was long a favorite among socialites for parties and photo shoots. Vanderbilt held many a gala fundraiser here. Beatle John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, bought it less than a year before Lennon's death. It's still privately owned and not open to the public, but it's well worth a drive-by on any self-guided Palm Beach mansion tour.

At 7 miles long from north to south, the park's largest key has a history that includes legends of pirates as well as the actual presence of pioneers, who began cultivating farms here in the late 1800s. In the 1950s, developers envisioned creating a tropical city called "Islandia" on this key. But it was the idea of creating a causeway needed to open the island to homes, as well as hotels and other businesses, that marked a turning point in the battle between developers and preservationists and ultimately led to the creation of Biscayne National Park. Today, without a hotel in sight, Elliott Key is a popular destination for boaters and campers.

A highlight here is a 30-foot-wide sandy shoreline, the park's only swimming beach, situated a mile north of the harbor on the island's west (bay) side. In addition to having a mile-long hiking trail, Elliott Key is home to the so-called Spite Highway, a clear-cut scar that runs approximately 6 miles down the center of the island. Carved out of spite by developers in their quest to turn the lush key into a commercial haven, the meaning has changed as nature continues to spite those developers by slowly and steadily reclaiming the land.

Overnight guests tie up their boats at one of the harbor's 33 slips or pitch tents at the campground, which has restrooms, picnic tables, grills, fresh drinking water, and cold showers. Either way, the fee is $35 per evening. Leashed pets are allowed in developed areas only, not on trails.

The museum's glittering, green-certified 48,000-square-foot facility houses a permanent collection along with traveling exhibits. The museum was founded in 1961 in honor of Sterling Elliott, an inventor of an early automated-addressing machine, the egg crate, and a four-wheel bicycle, and it celebrates history, art, and technology, much of it viewed through the lens of the automobile's effect on American society. There's an impressive array of antique cars, plus paintings, historic artifacts, and nostalgic goods like vintage baseball cards and toys.

This beach is popular with teenagers, although beachgoers of all ages frequent it. Though it attracts crowds, it's easy to find your own patch of beach. Parking can be tough on busy weekends. Amenities: showers; toilets. Best for: partiers; swimming.

Off Wabasso Beach Road, the 64 acres here are almost completely surrounded by water. In addition to a 600-foot boardwalk through the mangrove shoreline and a 1-mile canoe trail, there are aquariums filled with Indian River creatures. Boat and kayak trips to see the historic Pelican Island rookery are on offer along with guided nature walks and touch-tank encounters. Call or check the center's website for times.

The park's main visitor center is named after the Connecticut landscape designer, Ernest F. Coe, who moved to Miami at the age of 60 where he was at first intrigued by, and then fell in love with, the Everglades. It was Coe who became the leading proponent to turn this region into a national park; he raised funds, generated support, and worked out ways visitors could see the Everglades with minimal impact on the environment. This is a convenient first stop to pick up a map, watch an introductory film providing an overview of the Everglades, and view exhibits that reveal the nature of the park.

The visitor center is outside park gates, so you can stop in without paying park admission (and use the restrooms). Also, due to the remoteness of this location, visitors arriving via ride-sharing services (Uber, Lyft) should plan for return transportation before starting their adventure. There's no public transportation to this site.

There's a bohemian feel to this street lined with Mediterranean-revival buildings constructed in 1925 and inspired by New York's Greenwich Village. Al Capone's gambling syndicate ran its operations upstairs at what is now The Clay Hotel, a value-conscious boutique hotel. At a nightclub here in the 1930s, future bandleader Desi Arnaz strapped on a conga drum and started beating out a rumba rhythm. Visit this quaint pedestrian-only way nowadays and find a number of personality-driven restaurants and bars. Weekly programming includes the likes of salsa dancing, flamenco dancing, and opera performances.

Many episodes of Animal Planet's Gator Boys were filmed here, making this wetland "park" an extremely popular tourist attraction. Take an hour-long airboat tour, snap a selfie with a python, and catch alligators wrestling in the pit.

The airboats tend to be supersize, and the overall experience can feel commercialized.

The best view at Port Canaveral is no longer from the top of a cruise ship. In fact, the view from atop this towering seven-story structure makes the cruise ships look—well, not so massive after all. The tower, a short walk from the cruise port, is equal parts museum and scenic overlook. From the seventh-floor deck you can see the cruise port, the Atlantic Ocean, the Banana River, and even the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center. Displays on others floors highlight everything from space flight to surfing and marine life to maritime history. Don't miss the interactive exhibits, including a virtual ship's bridge that lets you pilot a boat through the Canaveral Channel and into the Atlantic. A theater shows a 20-minute film on the history of Brevard County, and a small café sells refreshments and baked goods. The ground floor houses a visitor information center.

Set on 6.5 acres in the burgeoning Warehouse Arts District, this ambitious project consists of eight converted factories and warehouses that provide 91,000 square feet of creative space for galleries, studios, and arts organizations and businesses (including a record store). Events–from workshops to markets to festivals—are held here, too. It's also home to the Fairgrounds, an immersive art-and-technology experience.

With 83 acres of lakes, sunken gardens, a 560-foot vine pergola, orchids, bellflowers, coral trees, bougainvillea, rare palms, and flowering trees, Fairchild is the largest tropical botanical garden in the continental United States. The tram tour highlights the best of South Florida and exotic flora; then you can set off exploring on your own. The 2-acre Simons Rainforest, which is complete with a waterfall and a stream, showcases tropical plants from around the world. The conservatory contains rare tropical plants, including the Burmese Amherstia nobilis, flowering annually with orchidlike pink flowers. The Keys Coastal Habitat, created in a marsh and mangrove area in 1995 with assistance from the Tropical Audubon Society, provides food and shelter to resident and migratory birds. 

The 2,500-foot-long boardwalk at Big Cypress Bend takes visitors fairly quickly through this swamp forest, providing an opportunity to see rare plants, nesting eagles, and Florida's largest swath of coexisting native royal palms—unique to Fakahatchee Strand—with bald cypress under the forest canopy. Fakahatchee Strand is also considered the orchid and bromeliad capital of the continent, with 44 native orchids and 14 native bromeliads, many blooming most extravagantly in hotter months. It's particularly famed for ghost orchids that are visible on guided hikes. Keep an eye out for white-tailed deer, black bears, bobcats, and the Florida panther. For park nature on parade, take the 6-mile stretch of Janes Memorial Scenic Drive (between the visitor center and East Main) that's open to traffic; the rest of the drive is open only to hikers and bikers.

This site of a Civil War–era whiskey distillery and, later, an exotic plant nursery (some species still thrive in the wild) is now best known as the site of the Falling Waters Sink. The 100-foot-deep cylindrical pit provides the background for a waterfall, and there's an observation deck for viewing this natural phenomenon. The water free-falls 73 feet to the bottom of the sink, but where it goes after that is a mystery. Once you've seen the cascade, stay for the birding—more than 100 species have been seen here. Campsites are available.

For fans of the film franchise, the chance to join the crew on a hair-raising car chase is the appeal of this virtual reality attraction. Two preshows lead to a ride vehicle that travels down the highway in a bumper-to-bumper, side-by-side, combination race and gunfight (including helicopter gunships) complete with adrenaline-inducing rocking-and-rolling movements.

For people with disabilities: Guests in wheelchairs must be able to transfer to the ride vehicle. Waiting in line here can be fun: cars from the film are displayed in the queue area, and a game on the Universal Orlando app tests your knowledge of Fast & Furious trivia and lets you take a quiz to determine which vehicle suits your personality.

Knowledgeable experts offer insight on some of the more exotic birds found around Animal Kingdom. Expect to see macaws, parrots, vultures, and, occasionally, an American bald eagle. This show is a great option for the afternoon, as it only fills up during the busiest of times. Those not wanting a bird flying over their heads should sit in the bleachers in the back. 

Wander through the aviary, arboretum, and wildlife sanctuary at Flamingo Gardens, and don't miss the Everglades museum inside the historic Wray Home. A half-hour guided tram ride winds through tropical fruit groves and wetlands, where a large collection of Florida native wildlife lives (flamingos, alligators, bobcats, otters, panthers, and more).