Things to Do in Fort Lauderdale beyond the beach

Dortl LAudersale Marine East Fort Lauderdale

Looking for the best things to do in Fort Lauderdale? From the Riverwalk to wreck diving via, the Everglades and Hollywood (no, not that one), vintage shopping and hidden cultural gems, these are the Fort Lauderdale experiences worth making time for.

Everyone who has ever written about Fort Lauderdale has led with the beach and canals. I know this because I read about four hundred incidental articles while pretending I was doing research but was in fact procrastinating on my own packing. It is alleged that there are more canals here than in Venice. And yes, someone will absolutely tell you that within eleven minutes of your arrival, usually while trying to sell you a jet ski or a kayak or something to put on water.

What nobody tells you about is that Fort Lauderdale has spent the last decade becoming one of the more interesting, layered, culturally rich destinations in Florida, with a growing arts and culture scene, strong Caribbean and Latin American influences, historic neighbourhoods, independent restaurants, museums and wildlife. while still managing to have a reputation stuck somewhere around 1985 spring break.

Yes, Fort Lauderdale will always sell itself on sunshine and yachts, because that is easy and it works. But the version of the city worth writing home about is the one built on culture, community, and a surprising amount of substance under the shine. Here’s where to go if you’re looking for what to do in Fort Lauderdale beyond the beach (and on it).

Las Olas Boulevard

Las Olas Boulevard turns up in every single article about this city, usually as a passing mention on the way to somewhere else, which is a shame because it deserves an actual visit rather than a glance out a car window. It is genuinely lovely for a slow evening wander, with boutique shopfronts, sidewalk dining, galleries, palm trees and some seriously committed people-watching. The fancy cars cruising up and down are almost entertainment in themselves. You might spot a Lamborghini followed by something that looks like it has driven straight out of 1950s Havana, all gleaming chrome, candy-coloured paint and enormous fins. Go at dusk when the heat has dropped and the street properly comes alive, keep walking until you find somewhere that looks interesting, order something you cannot get at home and resist the urge to rush.

Fort Lauderdale Riverwalk

The New River is where Fort Lauderdale starts to make sense. Walk the Riverwalk through downtown and you get a front-row seat to the strange mix that makes this city work, with million-dollar boats sliding past historic buildings, joggers weaving around tourists, waterfront bars, palms, bridges and the occasional giant yacht making everything else look slightly inadequate.

The paved trail runs for about three miles along the river, linking parks, restaurants, museums, galleries and historic sites. It’s especially good around late afternoon, when the heat starts to ease and the river turns gold. Stop at Stranahan House, Broward County’s oldest surviving building, then keep walking and see how quickly Fort Lauderdale shifts from its pioneer past to its glossy present.

Fort Lauderdale Arts and Culture

Fort Lauderdale’s creative life is easy to miss if you spend your entire visit between the beach and the pool. Head inland to FATVillage and the MASS District, where galleries, studios, bars and event spaces occupy former industrial spaces and colourful murals turn walls and laneways into open-air galleries. The best time to explore FATVillage is during an art walk or other local event, when galleries stay open late, artists come out and the streets fill with people. In 2026, Broward County is celebrating 50 years of arts and culture, with exhibitions, performances and community events happening across Greater Fort Lauderdale, giving you another reason to get off the beach and see what the city is making.

Fort Lauderdale Museums and Galleries

Fort Lauderdale’s better-known museums include the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, with its permanent collection of more than 7,500 works spanning American, Latin American and contemporary art, including a major collection of work by William Glackens, and the Museum of Discovery and Science, where interactive exhibits cover everything from space and engineering to the human body, Florida’s ecosystems and the science of the natural world. Both are downtown, so they’re easy to fold into a first visit. But Fort Lauderdale has plenty of smaller museums that are easy to miss and, frankly, much more fun for it.

Fort Lauderdale takes swimming very seriously. The International Swimming Hall of Fame sits right on the beachfront and celebrates the people, places and slightly ridiculous achievements that have shaped the sport, from Olympic medals and swimming memorabilia to underwater photography and even props from the old Tarzan movies. It is a wonderfully Fort Lauderdale combination of serious sporting history and things you probably did not expect to find in a swimming museum.

The Fort Lauderdale Antique Car Museum is tucked behind the airport and easy to drive straight past, which would be a mistake. Inside is a genuinely excellent collection of restored Packards spanning the early 1900s to the 1940s, some with built-in golf-club compartments because apparently that was once a thing rich people needed. It’s open Monday to Friday from 10am to 4pm and Saturday from 10am to 3pm, which feels about right for a museum this charmingly under the radar

The Stonewall National Museum, Archives & Library holds one of the world’s largest LGBTQ+ collections and archives. Exhibitions rotate and programming is active, so check what’s on before you go.

The Old Davie School Historical Museum, a short drive inland, occupies the actual 1918 schoolhouse and tells the story of South Florida’s agricultural past through artefacts, photographs and maps.

And History Fort Lauderdale, on the New River downtown, brings together historic buildings including the 1905 New River Inn and King-Cromartie House to tell the city’s early story without requiring an entire day and a pair of sensible shoes.

Historic Fort Lauderdale and Sistrunk

Fort Lauderdale’s story is much bigger than the beach and the yachts. For a proper dose of local history and culture, head into the Sistrunk corridor and look beyond the glossy waterfront. The Old Dillard Museum and the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center are part of a part of the city that deserves considerably more attention than it gets.

I’d also make time for Island SPACE Caribbean Museum in nearby Plantation. The museum tells the story of Caribbean people, culture and history in the United States, from pre-colonisation through slavery and emancipation and into the modern era.

This is the stuff that changes the way you see a destination. You stop looking at Fort Lauderdale as a collection of beaches and hotels and start understanding the communities that actually made the place.

Bonnet House Museum & Gardens

Bonnet House Museum & Gardens is one of those places that makes you wonder why anyone ever decided modern houses needed to be sensible. The 35-acre estate sits between the Atlantic and the Intracoastal and combines a historic house, art, gardens and several distinct ecosystems. There are orchids, tropical gardens, nature trails, peacocks and enough eccentric personal touches to make you want to go home and repaint something.

A quick word about the architecture, because the usual description needs a bit of context. Bonnet House is sometimes described as “Caribbean plantation-style”, but that refers to its architectural influence, not its history. Frederic Clay Bartlett began building the house in 1920 as a winter home with his wife, Helen Birch, on land her father, Hugh Taylor Birch, had acquired decades earlier. The property was never a working plantation and was never home to enslaved people.

The site does have older history, however, with archaeological evidence of Tequesta occupation dating back thousands of years. The house itself is wonderfully odd and personal, preserving the Bartletts’ home, art and gardens and offering a glimpse of early 20th-century South Florida before the surrounding coastline was heavily developed. It feels like a real home belonging to real people rather than a historic building where every chair has been roped off and nobody is allowed to breathe near it.

Everglades Airboat Tours

Photo by Richard Sagredo on Unsplash

Yes, the Everglades is an obvious thing to do near Fort Lauderdale. It is obvious because it is spectacular.

Head west of the city and take an airboat into the wetlands, where the scenery changes from palm trees and high-rises to sawgrass, mangroves and an awful lot of water. Keep your eyes peeled for alligators lurking in the shallows, because even the wildlife here has perfected the art of looking completely unbothered. Just don’t mistake their nonchalance for friendliness. These are not cuddly Florida mascots. They will eat you.

The airboat ride itself is half the fun. The flat-bottomed, propeller-powered boats skim across the shallow wetlands and marshes, getting you into parts of the Everglades you simply can’t reach by car. Some tours describe the experience as being a bit like riding a hovercraft, which feels about right when you’re gliding across the water with a giant fan roaring behind you.

Choose an operator that knows the ecosystem rather than one whose entire business model appears to be doing doughnuts in the sawgrass for Instagram. The Everglades is not just an entertaining backdrop. It is one of the world’s most important wetland ecosystems, and getting out into it gives you a much better sense of why it matters.

Hugh Taylor Birch State Park

Right in the middle of all the condos, traffic and shiny waterfront development is 180 acres of something that feels considerably older. Hugh Taylor Birch State Park sits between the Atlantic and the Intracoastal, protecting one of the last remaining stretches of tropical maritime hammock in this part of Broward County. There are shaded trails, a freshwater lagoon, mangroves, wildlife and places to kayak or paddle, so you can swap Fort Lauderdale’s glass and concrete for something considerably greener without actually leaving the city. Hugh Taylor Birch donated the land for public use, and that decision is a big part of why this little pocket of Old Florida survived.

Flamingo Gardens

Flamingo Gardens is technically a botanical garden and wildlife sanctuary, and I am including it here because “technically” undersells it enormously. One of South Florida’s oldest, founded in 1927 and spread across 60 acres in Davie, just west of Fort Lauderdale at 3750 South Flamingo Road, it is open daily from 9.30am to 5pm. Between the towering champion trees, the free-flight aviary, a narrated tram tour, and resident wildlife including rescued panthers, bears, alligators and, yes, actual flamingos, it is a slower, greener counterpoint to everything shiny and fast happening back on the coast. Go early, take your time, and accept that you will end up taking an unreasonable number of photos of a bird that is, let us be honest, mostly just standing there.

Kayaking in Fort Lauderdale

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For a different view of Fort Lauderdale, swap the yacht for a kayak and head into the mangroves. Hugh Taylor Birch State Park has easy paddling on its freshwater lagoon, while nearby Anne Kolb Nature Center in Hollywood opens into a much larger mangrove wetland threaded with kayak trails. It is a good way to see the quieter side of South Florida, with mangrove tunnels, waterways and wildlife replacing the towers and traffic. You don’t need to be an experienced paddler either. This is more about poking around the waterways than proving anything to anyone.

Secret Woods Nature Center

You would never guess there was a place like this in the middle of Fort Lauderdale. Secret Woods Nature Center is a 57-acre pocket of native South Florida forest and wetland tucked between roads and development, with shaded trails, boardwalks and two small rivers to explore.

Walk the trails and you’ll find a very different side of the city, with mangroves, cypress, palms and the sort of wildlife you don’t generally associate with a built-up Florida city. There are turtles, wading birds, butterflies and, if you’re lucky, the occasional alligator doing what alligators do best, which is sitting extremely still and making you question whether that log was there a minute ago.

There are short trails and boardwalks rather than a serious hike, making it an easy stop when you want some nature without committing half a day to it. And honestly, the name alone makes it worth finding. Fort Lauderdale has plenty of places that want you to know they’re there. Secret Woods is much more fun because it feels like you weren’t supposed to know about it.

Wreck Diving in Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale is known as the “Wreck Diving Capital of the World”, with a remarkable collection of artificial reefs and deliberately sunk vessels just offshore. The wrecks sit close enough to the coast to make diving here unusually accessible, with sites ranging from shallow reefs suitable for snorkelling and newer divers to deeper wrecks for experienced scuba divers.

You don’t need to be a hardcore diver to get a taste of what’s beneath the surface either. Snorkelling trips and introductory dives offer a way to see the city’s underwater side without committing to a full wreck-diving expedition. It is one of the best reminders that Fort Lauderdale’s relationship with the water doesn’t stop at the shoreline.

Things to Do in Hollywood, Florida

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A short drive south, Hollywood (the Florida one, considerably fewer film stars, considerably more charm) is doing its own quiet cultural thing away from the Fort Lauderdale spotlight. Downtown Hollywood, centred on Harrison Street and Hollywood Boulevard, is made for proper wandering, with independent shops, cafes, restaurants and galleries giving you plenty of reasons to keep poking around rather than simply passing through. Street art turns up on walls and laneways, giving the area a scrappy creative energy that the marinas up the road don’t really go in for. The Downtown Hollywood Mural Project is particularly worth seeking out if you like your sightseeing with a bit of colour and less historical plaque. Then head towards Hollywood Beach and its famous Broadwalk, where the mood shifts from artsy downtown to old-school seaside holiday.

If you want to see the spectacularly over-the-top side of South Florida, head inland to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, instantly recognisable for its enormous guitar-shaped hotel. The complex has restaurants, bars, live entertainment and the casino itself, but even if gambling isn’t your thing, the sheer scale of the place makes it worth seeing. It is about as far from the old-school beach-town feel of Hollywood Beach as you can get, which is precisely why it is interesting.

Where to Eat in Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale’s food scene is considerably more interesting than the waterfront restaurant strips might suggest. Yes, there is excellent seafood, and yes, there are plenty of places where you can eat an expensive dinner while watching a yacht the size of a small apartment glide past. But the city’s Caribbean, Cuban, Latin American and Southern influences are where things get interesting, particularly once you leave the beach and follow where locals actually eat.

For a cheap and genuinely local meal, seek out the city’s Caribbean food. Michelle Flavor’s Caribbean Restaurant does Jamaican comfort food including oxtail, jerk chicken, curry goat and escovitch snapper, while Reflexion Restaurant is a good introduction to Haitian cooking, with griot, diri djon djon and plantains. Cuban cafes and neighbourhood restaurants are another part of the picture, with pressed Cubanos, roast pork, rice and beans, pastelitos and strong cafecitos.

Then there are the seafood places that actually make sense in a city built around water. Coconuts is a Fort Lauderdale favourite for casual waterfront seafood, while the more polished end of the spectrum includes places such as Takato, where Japanese and Korean influences meet a serious beach view.

The city also has a habit of tucking good restaurants into buildings with previous lives. The House on the River is a brilliant example, occupying a genuinely old riverside building with the kind of character you cannot fake with clever lighting and a Pinterest board. If you want a meal that feels connected to the city rather than another restaurant chosen because it has a river view, this is your stop.

And then there are the places that make eating in Fort Lauderdale feel like an experience rather than simply another meal.

At Regina’s Farm, you can eat a Brazilian dinner in an urban farm setting, with meals inspired by the cooking of Minas Gerais. It is the kind of experience that feels much more connected to the people who live here than another restaurant picked because it has a good view. The dinners are popular, so book well ahead if you want to get a seat.

For something considerably more theatrical, head to The Wreck Bar at B Ocean Resort, where porthole windows look straight into the swimming pool and mermaid performances take place underwater. The mermaids have been part of the bar’s slightly bonkers history since the 1950s, making this one of those wonderfully kitsch Florida experiences that is impossible to take too seriously. Order a drink, settle in and watch the underwater show through the glass.

And if you like your cocktails with a side of secrecy, Rm. 901 is a reservations-only speakeasy opposite the NSU Art Museum, styled around Prohibition-era Fort Lauderdale. It is a little more polished than the average hidden bar, but the old-school atmosphere makes it a fun change from the city’s waterfront drinking scene.

Vintage Shopping in Fort Lauderdale

If, like me, your idea of a good holiday souvenir involves something with a previous life, Fort Lauderdale has plenty to rummage through. Wilton Manors is good territory for designer consignment, and a few names come up again and again for having the genuinely good stuff rather than picked-over leftovers. Worth Repeating Fine Consignments is the closest thing the area has to a proper resale institution, nearly four decades in, housed in a distinctive green-shuttered building, with racks of gently worn Chanel, YSL, Gucci, and Burberry that well-heeled Fort Lauderdale women quietly cycle through rather than be seen in twice. A few doors down, Snooty Fox Consignments is another serious go-to for designer pieces at a step down in price and formality. And just north in Oakland Park, Oddballs Nifty Thrift is the one locals actually call their favorite, the kind of place regulars describe as feeling more like a museum than a thrift shop.

The Old Florida Book Shop in Dania Beach is particularly good for bookish treasure, with rare books, antique maps and vintage magazines crammed into a gloriously old-school shop. If it’s vinyl you’re after,

We Got the Beats in Oakland Park is the one that turns up on every local’s list, with new and used records, CDs, tapes, and turntables and a staff that will happily talk you through a pressing before you buy it. For something scrappier, Vinylocoz is tucked inside Lola’s Bazaar Market in Wilton Manors, a dig-through-the-crates kind of shop heavy on rock, hip hop, reggae, and Latin American psych. The wider area also turns up more vintage furniture, fashion and the sort of wonderfully unnecessary objects you absolutely did not know you needed until you saw them.

And while it’s not vintage, if you’re after a bargain, head to Sawgrass Mills, one of the largest outlet shopping destinations in the United States. It draws shoppers from well beyond Fort Lauderdale with hundreds of stores under one very large roof, so you can swap vintage finds for designer labels at outlet prices. It is not exactly the local, independent experience above, but if you want designer labels at outlet prices, this is where you go.

Getting Around Fort Lauderdale

Image Mariya Eskina on Pexels.

A car is useful in Fort Lauderdale, particularly if you’re planning to venture beyond the central areas, although parking and traffic can turn a short trip into a surprisingly slow one. Downtown, Las Olas and the beach are easier to explore on foot, while rideshares are handy when the distances get awkward. And then there are the waterways, which offer a far more enjoyable way to get around.

The Water Taxi is part sightseeing cruise, part hop-on, hop-off transport, connecting stops around the Intracoastal and New River, with services extending to Hollywood and other destinations. You can hop off around restaurants, shopping areas, beaches and waterfront attractions, then climb back aboard when you’re ready to keep exploring.

This might be the best way to see Fort Lauderdale’s waterways, too. You get all the mansion-and-mega-yacht gawking without being responsible for steering anything.

If you’d rather make the water the actual event, book a sightseeing or dinner cruise on the New River or Intracoastal. These cruises turn the city’s waterways into the main attraction, with views of waterfront mansions, marinas, downtown and the mega-yachts that make Fort Lauderdale look faintly ridiculous in the best possible way. A sunset or evening cruise is particularly good when the heat drops and the city starts lighting up.

Fort Lauderdale Yachts and Marinas

I have just spent several thousand words making the case that Fort Lauderdale is more than its yachts, and I stand by every word of it, but I would also be lying if I pretended the yachts are not a genuine spectacle worth seeing, in the same way you’d go and look at an enormous old cathedral in a European city, even if you are not religious.

Bahia Mar Yachting Center, across from Fort Lauderdale Beach, is the city’s most iconic marina address and the permanent home of the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show each November, the largest boat show on the planet and, for one week a year, basically the entire personality of the city. Pier Sixty-Six, over on the Intracoastal, takes vessels up to 400 feet and somehow makes that sound like a modest claim once you have seen what actually pulls in.

You do not need a boat, an invitation, or a trust fund to enjoy any of this, walking the docks and doing frankly unreasonable amounts of yacht based small talk with strangers costs nothing. Just do not let it be the only Fort Lauderdale story you come home with.

Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show

If you happen to be in Fort Lauderdale in late October, you may as well lean into the yacht thing properly and go to the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. Held across the city’s waterfront, FLIBS is the world’s largest in-water boat show, and for five days the city’s already considerable obsession with boats goes completely off the scale. The 2026 show runs from October 28 to November 1.

You don’t need to be in the market for a $20 million superyacht to enjoy it. There are boats of every imaginable size, from sleek little runabouts to floating mansions that appear to require their own postcode, along with marine technology, fishing gear, watersports equipment, food, drinks and plenty of people who know considerably more about boats than you probably ever intended to.

The show stretches across multiple waterfront venues, with free transportation connecting the sites, so it is less a traditional exhibition and more a very large, very shiny takeover of Fort Lauderdale’s waterways. You can wander the docks, climb aboard boats, gawp at the superyachts and generally indulge in some spectacularly shameless people-watching.

If you’re visiting Fort Lauderdale specifically for the boat show, book accommodation early and allow more time than you think you’ll need. This is not the sort of event you race through in an hour. And if you have absolutely no interest in boats, well, honestly, you might still have fun. It is very hard to stand beside a yacht the size of a small apartment and remain completely unimpressed.

Fort Lauderdale Beaches

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It would be disingenuous to write about Fort Lauderdale and pretend the beaches are not part of why people fall for this place. Skip trying to hit all of them and just pick your flavour. Fort Lauderdale Beach itself is the wide, palm lined, postcard version, good for a proper swim and a walk along the promenade without needing to drive anywhere else. Hollywood Beach has a broader, more local, less polished energy with its own boardwalk running alongside it. Either one will do exactly what a Florida beach is supposed to do, so choose based on whether you want polish or personality and do not overthink it further than that.

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An award-winning travel writer and photographer, Aleney de Winter was fresh from school when she first set off to explore the far reaches of Australia with a two-man tent and a beaten-up Kingswood for company. Three decades, and two kids later, and she's still on the go, with her itchy-footed offspring in tow.

September 13, 2026 | 0 comment