Photos: Backattaxk251 / CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gfgbeach / CC0 1.0 · Stig Nygaard / CC BY 2.0
The big Orlando parks are all here, for the first trip. So is the rest of the state, for the one after that.
44 places · Florida
Tickets for about half of these, with what each one leaves out, are on the things-to-do pages for Orlando, Tampa Bay and Miami.
Must-seeThe Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean have been running here for decades. Stay for dusk, when Cinderella Castle turns into a screen for projections and fireworks.
Must-seeThe most ambitious thing Universal has built in Orlando: five themed worlds around a fountain garden, with Super Nintendo World and the Wizarding World's Ministry of Magic among them. Give it more than one day.
Must-seeStand under the real Space Shuttle Atlantis, then walk beneath a 363-foot Saturn V laid out on its side. The bus tour heads out past the launch pads and the Vehicle Assembly Building.
Must-seeGiraffes and zebras on the Serengeti Plain in the morning, a dive coaster straight down a cliff after lunch. Both halves of the park are the real thing.
Must-seeThe Antarctica Realm keeps emperor penguins, and at Stingray Lagoon you can touch the rays. Expedition Odyssey, once Wild Arctic, has belugas and walruses. Behind the rides, the park keeps rescue habitats for manatees and sea turtles.
Must-seeA boardwalk crosses the breeding marsh past hundreds of bellowing alligators, including a few rare white ones with pale blue eyes. Owen Godwin started it in 1949, and it's still part wildlife preserve, part old-school roadside stop.
Must-seeNowhere else on the planet still stages live underwater mermaid shows. The swimmers breathe from hidden air hoses in the spring while you watch through the glass of a 400-seat theater built into the limestone.
Must-seeThe quarter is small enough to walk end to end. St. George Street is closed to cars, and it threads past colonial-era buildings to the old city gates.
Must-seeEdward Leedskalnin weighed about 120 pounds. The heaviest stone he quarried for Coral Castle in Homestead weighs more than 21 tons. He worked without electricity, with pulleys and winches made from old car and truck parts, from 1923 until his death in 1951. By the late 1930s he was giving tours for 10 cents a person.
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Gardens & wildlife
Gardens & wildlife
Gardens & wildlife
Gardens & wildlifeOther lists that cover the same ground.
24 placesEvery spring on this list stays between 68 and 74 degrees all year, and from mid-November through March the manatees move into Blue Spring and Three Sisters. You watch them from the boardwalk.
26 placesThis list has 26 of Florida's 175 or so state parks. Book Blue Spring before you drive: it needs a day-use reservation.
20 placesStart here if you haven't picked a coast yet. The wild beaches and the busy ones are mixed together on purpose; the separate Gulf and Atlantic lists split them out once you know which you want.
14 placesGo in winter if you can. Manatees crowd the warm springs from mid-November through March, and the wading birds are thickest on the same cool, dry mornings.