Travel: Postcard from Daytona Beach

By Dennis Lennox, CP Contributor | Sunday, April 10, 2022

Fail to remember Daytona Beach’s stereotypes of race automobiles and spring split.

All through my the latest pay a visit to in the lull amongst the two periods of spring break — higher education learners and then every person else — I identified a place comprehensive of surprises.

There is no query that Daytona Seaside enjoys around-common identify recognition, thanks to the legendary auto race that occurs every single February at the huge keep track of adjacent to the recently renovated airport. The keep track of is generally a cathedral for racing enthusiasts.

At the similar time, the put felt somewhat off-the-beaten path if only mainly because there are a noticeable deficiency of major chain inns and large oceanfront resorts in comparison with extra designed and crowded components of Florida. Together Atlantic Avenue, the strip that parallels the ocean, pretty a handful of old-college motels with tropical or usually whimsical names can be identified. Just one these kinds of home is the art deco-fashion Streamline Resort, wherever the predecessor of NASCAR was fashioned in 1947.

When most people today say or think of Daytona Beach, they indicate the seaside itself and not the town of the similar title.

Working for 23 miles together the Atlantic coast, the white-sand seaside actually passes through three individual towns and one town in Volusia County: Ponce Inlet, Daytona Seaside Shores, Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach front. General public obtain incorporates marked lanes for motorists ready to fork in excess of $20 for the novelty of driving on a beach front.

While it is simple to under no circumstances go away the sunshine and sand, the actual attract is discovered in the town proper.

Most obvious is a $25 million redevelopment of the esplanade facing the Halifax River opposite Seashore Road, Daytona Beach’s primary road in all but name. As soon as concluded it will enhance the quaint downtown, which is a welcome departure from the strip malls and limitless sprawl found in other places in Florida.

On close by Orange Avenue is St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. Dating to at least 1883, the handsome carpenter Gothic church with its fine selection of stained-glass windows is purportedly the oldest constantly applied church everywhere in the Sunshine Condition.

A quick travel absent is the Museum of Arts & Sciences, which features the standalone Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Artwork. In contrast to art museums in other places, the assortment listed here is entirely Florida artwork. Works range from early depictions of centuries-old St. Augustine to impressionist paintings of landscape. In quick, the museum punches properly higher than its body weight.

If you go

Also worthy of traveling to are the Halifax Historical Museum, Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse & Museum and The Casements, the previous winter season dwelling of John D. Rockefeller.

I stayed in generally tranquil Daytona Seaside Shores at the Delta, a Marriott branded resort and a single of the few main chain outposts. Not only do lots of of the rooms have private oceanfront balconies, but the relatives-pleasant hotel features immediate accessibility to the beach and, notably, no resort fees.

Consume at The Cellar, an Italian cafe in the one particular-time home of President Warren Harding Top rated of Daytona on the 29th ground of an oceanfront tower or the everyday Down the Hatch Seafood Enterprise with waterfront sights of the Ponce de Leon Inlet.

Most site visitors fly into Daytona Beach’s airport, which has everyday services from American Airways and Delta Air Strains. Orlando, located about an hour away by automobile, has significantly much more flight options.

Dennis Lennox writes a journey column for The Christian Article.