Orlando’s Best Day Trips

While an Orlando vacation is sure to revolve around the theme parks, these nearby attractions are the best ways to broaden your trip beyond Disney’s scope. Visit Florida’s surrounding bodies of water, see NASA’s home base, and shop for antiques, all within a short drive of Mickey Mouse.


Mount Dora



Downtown Mount Dora is a rarity in Central Florida: a walkable, old-timey village lined with cafes and antique shops. What’s more, it abuts the shoreline of the massive Lake Dora, so it’s a prime spot for sailing, fishing, and paddle-boating. Interested visitors should plan to hit Mount Dora on the weekend, when they can enjoy near-constant street fairs and outdoor entertainment. The village is about 35 miles from metro Orlando, and its many Bed and Breakfast-style inns are great alternatives to the city’s park-adjacent lodging.


Daytona Beach



Everyone’s heard of the famous 500, but Daytona’s Atlantic coastline also offers many non-vehicular pleasures. The beach is 23 miles of white sand, where timely visitors can witness the summer season’s widespread influx of sea turtles. Its boardwalk is a classic seaside amusement area, complete with go-karting and carnival games. Plus, for motorsports devotees, NASCAR’s official attraction “Daytona USA” offers stock car test drives and interactive racing games. Daytona Beach is 55 miles from downtown Orlando, an hour’s drive on the highway.


Kennedy Space Center



Anyone intrigued by space travel should consider a day with the Ultimate Space Experience tour, an all-inclusive jaunt from Orlando to Canaveral and back. Participants will tour Kennedy’s iconic Rocket Garden, the Astronaut Hall of Fame, and NASA’s Visitor Complex, and will have the rare opportunity to ride in a G-force Trainer. The tour requires a little over an hour in the bus to get to Kennedy’s Merritt Island, located on Florida’s Atlantic coastline.


Canaveral National Seashore



There’s little to Canaveral besides a beautiful beach, but that’s reason enough to travel the 40 miles from Orlando to the Atlantic. Canaveral’s beaches are a series of barrier islands surrounded by the ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway; visitors can take a slight detour from Klondike Beach or Playalinda to catch Florida’s native manatees in the Intracoastal’s Haulover Canal. The seaside park is close enough to the city for a day excursion, but also contains back-country campgrounds for inexpensive overnights.


Clearwater Beach



Clearwater’s white sand Gulf Coast beaches are a dedicated recreation area, providing visitors with such aquatic entertainment as Captain Memo’s Pirate Cruise, an island-themed tour replete with pirates, reggae, and booze. The Sea Screamer, the world’s largest speed boat, also treats its patrons to a unique experience: the boat reaches top speeds on its one-hour tours, and dolphins love to chase it in its wake. Clearwater is approximately 100 miles and a two hour drive from Orlando, but its attractions are worth the extra haul.