🏖️ Beaches

New Smyrna Beach

New Smyrna Beach, FL · Space Coast

About

Thirteen miles of hard-packed Atlantic sand you can actually drive your car onto, with one of the most consistent surf breaks on the East Coast peeling just offshore. Flagler Avenue runs straight down to the water, spilling its galleries, raw bars, and live music onto the dunes, so the day moves easily from a dawn longboard session to fish tacos and a cold one by sunset. Surfer and National Geographic have both named it one of the world's top surf towns, and on a warm weekend the wide beach fills with boards, umbrellas, and trucks parked right at the tideline.

Highlights

13 miles of drivable, hard-packed sandConsistent surf break, named a top-20 world surf townFlagler Avenue's shops, raw bars, and live musicWide beach for swimming, fishing, and beach driving

Related places

Sebastian Inlet State Park Beaches

Sebastian Inlet State Park

Melbourne Beach, FL · Space Coast

Two long jetties run out into the Atlantic at the mouth of Sebastian Inlet, where the tide rips through and surfers line up at First Peak, the most reliable break on Florida's east coast. Anglers work the rocks for snook and Spanish mackerel while the calmer Indian River Lagoon side stays quiet enough for kayaks and wading birds. Two small museums sit inside the park, one telling the story of the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet that wrecked just offshore, the other the local fishing trade, and the campground stays open around the clock.

Canaveral National Seashore Beaches

Canaveral National Seashore

Titusville, FL · Space Coast

Twenty-four miles of barrier-island sand run unbroken here with not a single condo, snack bar, or resort wall in sight, just dunes stitched with sea oats, the Atlantic on one side and the still water of Mosquito Lagoon on the other. Park at a numbered lot, walk ten minutes past the last umbrella, and you can have a whole stretch of empty shoreline to yourself, the kind of solitude where sea turtles nest in summer and shorebirds outnumber people. On a clear morning you can look south down the beach and see the rocket gantries of Kennedy Space Center rising over the wild dune line, the only thing on the horizon for miles.

Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge Beaches

Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge

Melbourne Beach, FL · Space Coast

This is the wild Atlantic that A1A development never reached: twenty undeveloped miles of dune and dark sand running south from Melbourne Beach toward Wabasso, with no resort wall, no boardwalk strip, just sea oats, coastal scrub, and the open ocean. It is the most important loggerhead nesting beach in the Western Hemisphere, so on a summer dawn the sand is crossed with the tractor-tread tracks of mother turtles that hauled out overnight to lay. Park at the Barrier Island Center, walk the dune crossover, and you will likely have a long stretch of empty shoreline to yourself, the kind of quiet Florida beach that feels like a place rather than a parking lot.

Part of these collections

Curated guides that feature New Smyrna Beach.