Driving the A1A Coastal Highway

After a stay in Miami and a visit to Cape Florida, I took about a week to drive up the scenic A1A coastal highway. It only really took me about three and a half days, though I think it could be done in three days with a straight drive. I did a bit of backtracking and exploring along the way. Not included in that total is a day and a half detour into the Kissimmee/Orlando area, which I write about here.

Driving the A1A is really fun! It’s exciting to see the change in architecture and neighborhoods as you travel up the coast. Large chunks are skyscraper-laden ritzy beach towns but most of it is small neighborhoods with beachfront houses and overhanging trees along barrier islands. After a while, you start to form definite opinions about marine-life-themed mailboxes…

Miami Beach

Starting at the bottom of the A1A in Miami Beach, you are treated to a candy confection of pastel art deco buildings.

Shops, hotels, apartment buildings, car parks, even laundromats are in this streamline moderne style. Everything is painted in pinks, lavenders, and teals. I feel sure at night, it’s well-lit with neon. It strikes me as something between an old Hollywood movie and Bug Bunny. It’s a little cartoonish.

I dig it, though. Mind you, most of my pictures along the A1A are catch-as-catch-can, through-the-windshield shots on the fly. Forgive the reflections and odd angles.

Heading North of Miami Beach

As you head north on A1A, the heavily stylized and shorter buildings give way to taller and taller skyscrapers.

Continuing north, the high rises end and some very fancy single-family homes occupy the beach side of the road. A lot of these are behind walls or hedges so I don’t have very many pictures.

To give you an idea of timing, I left my Miami Airbnb rental in the morning, drove down and walked around the Bill Bagg’s Cape Florida State Park for a bit, then drove up and started the A1A through South Miami Beach. I ate lunch in a beach park in North Miami Beach.

Hollywood, Florida

After feeling like you just left 1940’s Hollywood, California, you reach Hollywood, Florida. It’s almost a Miami suburb. There’s a boardwalk area here with shops and restaurants that face the wide beach.

The boardwalk is a busy area. It’s where you’ll find fashion photoshoots, beachside fitness classes, and acai bowls. BUT, if you head just a little farther north on A1A, there are short one-way parking streets with paths through to a more pristine beach section. You’ll find these north of Hollywood North Beach Park.

It’s really beautiful here. This is where I housesat for a week before heading down to Miami itself. I regret I didn’t rack up more beach time. There is a large double-sided Little Free Library over here (that I got a really good book from.) And apparently abandoning cats is a big problem? There are signs all over the place about it.

Fort Lauderdale Beach

Continuing north on A1A, you get into the Fort Lauderdale area. Here, you’ll find these lovely little curly-cue walls along the beach. It’s one of the few places where you can get a really good view of the ocean from your car. And I learned that beachfront parks make great restroom breaks. (It’s not like there are rest stops on the A1A.)

Just north of Fort Lauderdale Beach Park, there is a very tall orange and yellow building that looks VERY similar to the Hollywood Tower of Terror in Disney World. I also got one of my few pictures of the actual A1A road sign here.

Pompano Beach and North on A1A

There are a few little (and not so little) bridges along the A1A and several of them are drawbridges. I had to stop for this one in Pompano Beach. It is kind of fun to see the tall boats pass by.

Above Pompano Beach, A1A gets very residential with a lot more trees. There are stretches of commercial development and low apartment complexes but overall, it’s smaller beach neighborhoods.

Palm Beach

I ended my day with a disappointing dinner at a beautifully grand resort, The Breakers in Palm Beach which I write about here. Right on the beach, there is a shopping area and clock tower next to the scalloped sea wall right at the beach. It’s a beautiful area.

Jupiter

After my meal, I drove a little farther along A1A to Jupiter where I stayed in an Airbnb for the night. It was too late for pictures then, but I went back in the morning to capture driving through this beautiful tunnel of what I think are banyan trees.

The A1A around Jupiter heads inland at times, as it does every now and then, becoming more commercial as it coincides with US 1/Dixie Highway. You could drive down along the neighborhoods on the beach but they dead end and you’d have to backtrack all the way to your entry point.

But what this gives you are these lovely bridges from the mainland over to the barrier island when A1A heads back out to the coast.

Fort Pierce

North of Jupiter, there are a lot of open empty places, eventually giving way to more subdued high rises than we saw down in Miami.

Vero Beach

The only thing I knew about Vero Beach before this drive is that there is a Disney resort here. I tried to visit but they wouldn’t let me in. I can’t really blame them during Covid…

So instead, I went to the public beach next door and had lunch from Beach Bites convenience store/sandwich shop.

Jungle Trail

While driving around Vero Beach, I came across historic Jungle Trail, an unpaved road just off Wabasso Beach Road. Of COURSE I pulled off to check it out!

It’s a section of old-growth Florida jungle sandwiched in between subdivisions and golf courses. And completely delightful for the explorer-by-car.

Pelican Island National Refuge

Partway along Jungle Trail, heading north of Wabasso Beach Road, is the Pelican Island National Refuge. Formed in 1903, this is the first wildlife refuge established in the United States. It’s a protected wetland and the site for 140 species of birds on their migratory route.

I didn’t see any pelicans or many other birds during my visit in late September. But there are lots of trails in the area, including a paved one next to a small lake.

Palm Bay

Heading north from Vero Beach and up towards the Palm Bay area, A1A is mostly populated with smaller houses and apartments. It’s along here that you really get to rating mailboxes. (Sadly, no pictures of the cement manatees, dolphins, and mermaids.)

Cocoa Beach

Since I spent some extra time tootling around Vero Beach, I ended up reaching Cocoa Beach in the late afternoon. Cocoa Beach is a tourist haven with lots of big shops. The biggest (or at least the most famous/most advertised) is the Ron Jon Surf Shop.

Two stories of self-branded merch, surfboards, beach shoes, and every other beachy item you can think of surround a central staircase with a rocky waterfall. It’s much nicer than your average souvenir shop – you can get some good brands here. But still, I visited in college in the 90’s and it hasn’t changed one bit.

Detour to Orlando

From here, I detoured into the Kissimmee/Orlando area which is a little over an hour’s drive away. I took a day to ride the Disney Skyliner in the morning, a Winter Park Boat Tour in the afternoon, and the Icon Orlando Ferris Wheel at night. On the way back, I spent the better part of a day at the Kennedy Space Center then continued up the A1A.

Titusville

The area around Cape Canaveral is open and wild, which is exactly what you want for a space launch. But it means the A1A goes inland for a while here.

Titusville is the small town nearest the Kennedy Space Center, and driving through on US 1, it has a very cute downtown.

There *is* a weird portion of the A1A that goes through the Canaveral National Seashore, at least according to the map. There are roads leading in on either side, but in between, A1A seems to turn into a walking trail along the beach. I didn’t do that part.

Between Titusville and Daytona Beach, there are some stretches of empty road. This next picture was taken on US 1 (I think) above Titusville.

Daytona Beach

Once you get up towards Daytona Beach, it’s pretty steady development up through St. Augustine. This is also a part of A1A that runs right along the beach, for once without buildings or houses on the beach side.

But in Daytona proper, it’s skyscraper city.

Flagler Beach

Up toward Flagler Beach, A1A gets much closer to the beach. It’s really a lovely part of the highway.

I ended up stopping near Flagler for the night. Having left the Kennedy Space Center around 3 pm, I was ready for dinner by the time I made it to Flagler Beach. I had it at the Flagler Fish Company, a seafood restaurant a few streets in from A1A.

They greet you here with complementary house-made chips and a crab dip that is irresistible. Then I had an Asian-inspired white fish with sesame green beans and wasabi potatoes. They did very well with social distancing, had lots of seating outside, and were SUPER friendly. I’d recommend it to anyone.

I was already a big fan of Flagler Beach, so I didn’t explore too much. In the morning, I got some shots of the pier, found an appropriate A1A bumper sticker for my car, and headed back north.

The beach in Flagler is a lovely spot and it’s here where you get to drive closest to the ocean on A1A.

A bit above Flager, you get into what I would consider “normal” beach homes. Small, pastel vacation rentals right on the beach. Not high rises or super expensive private homes.

Washington Oaks State Park

A little above Flager is the Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, a BEAUTIFUL gardens that I’ve visited before. But what I didn’t get to that time was the beach access side of the park.

This is a beautiful coquina beach – meaning, it’s not fine sand, but coarse seashells in various stages of being broken down. If you walk north from the access point, it’s a rocky beach which is sort of fun and different to explore. I got a little obsessed with getting pictures of the waves crashing on the rocks. You don’t see that as much down in Florida!

St. Augustine

Around lunchtime, I came to St. Augustine, the United States’ oldest city. I decided to visit Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth which is right on A1A. I’ll cover that in a later post (I can’t recommend it 100%, but it is fun.)

On a fun side note, as I was leaving the Fountain of Youth, I saw this pretty mansion at the end of the street. Turns out you can rent it on Airbnb! And it’s pretty reasonably priced for such a historic home. You don’t rent the entire house, but the host offers two suites with private entrances.

I did stop and take a peek at the venerable St. Augustine Lighthouse from the parking lot.

I ate a PB&J lunch in the parking lot, toured the Fountain of Youth, then drove around old St. Augustine a bit before continuing on. Sadly, I didn’t get pictures of old St. Augustine. It’s hard enough driving down those old brick streets without also trying to take pictures. (And I wasn’t about to pay to park.)

Jacksonville Beach and the Ferry

Up towards Jacksonville Beach, there are more houses along the beach, sort of normal-looking. Through I did pass MANY very large, very expensive looking homes on this trip as well. Homes with service entrances and marble facades.

To stay on A1A above Jacksonville, you have to take a short ferry ride. This was a surprise to me! But not expensive at all, around $7. And you can save a little if you download the app and purchase online, which I did while I was waiting for the ferry to arrive.

Amelia Island

After disembarking the ferry, A1A becomes really lush and woodsy. You drive up through several state parks and through Amelia Island. I couldn’t see too many beach houses (or the ocean) from A1A but it looked to have several private subdivisions.

Fernandina Beach

The end of A1A in is Fernandina Beach, at the top of Florida. There are several nice houses along A1A before it runs into Fort Clinch State Park (and a Salt Life cafe – I didn’t know those exist.)

Technically, A1A continues inland to the middle of town. I went looking for an “A1A end” sign but this was the best I could find, at the intersection of a gas station and a McDonald’s.

I ended up staying in a trailer in someone’s backyard at the end of this day (associate link, btw.) It was kind of fun! Very comfortable for an RV, I thought. Also, they had wine.

For dinner, I ate at a place called Wicked Bao and it was amazing! Cheap for three bao buns and very filling. This is the only place I ate that I regret not being closer to on a regular basis. It’s down near an abandoned-looking part of a wharf but it’s SO worth it.

The End

And that’s it! That’s the end of my trip driving north on the A1A scenic coastal highway. I really enjoyed it. This is exactly what I wanted when I started traveling. Hopefully, I’ll be able to take more on-the-road roadtrips soon.