Boardwalk & Pier

Daytona Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. It lies about 51 miles (82.1 km) northeast of Orlando, 86 miles (138.4 km) southeast of Jacksonville, and 242 miles (389.5 km) northwest of Miami. In the 2010 U.S. Census, it had a population of 61,005. It is a principal city of the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL metropolitan statistical area, which was home to 590,289 people in 2010. Daytona Beach is also a principal city of the Fun Coast region of Florida.
Daytona boardwalk and pier

Danita Delimont/Getty

Follow Main St E and you'll cross Daytona's sabal-palm-lined, ocean-fronting boardwalk, bedecked with dollar-grabbing ice-cream shops, amusement arcades, rides and patios where you can sip beer from plastic cups. It's fun for the family with a side order of sleaze in the form of dirty T-shirt shops and dodgy tattoo parlors. Follow Main St further east toward the unmissable coral-colored pier, once a summer-vacation icon and still the longest in the US.

Reopened after restoration in 2012, the 85-year-old wooden structure still feels a bit shabby, but perhaps that's to be expected when you jut 237m out into the wild Atlantic Ocean.


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