Visiting Daytona Beach
Visiting Daytona Beach
By MIKE WALKER
Daytona Beach is, to some of us, as much metaphor as a real place: we associate it with auto
racing, spring break, surfing, aviation, colleges, and most of all the beach itself. A popular vacation spot for college kids and families from around Florida and beyond alike, Daytona is in a sense the essence of the Floridian beach experience.
Sure, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, Miami Beach . . . these places all have a key position in the spectrum of Florida beaches and then there are the beaches of the panhandle, the beaches of southwestern Florida, the beaches of Jacksonville: Daytona Beach still holds perhaps the most unique representation of beach life in Florida of all, though.
For me, it's also become my personal favorite beach of Florida. There are prettier, less-crowded, beaches to be sure. There are places in Florida more remote, more interesting in their beauty and topography, but Daytona represents a lot of what I value in a beach and it also is one I've visited a great deal and therefore I have many fond memories of Daytona.
The first thing to realize with Daytona is that the whole city is called "Daytona Beach": the mainland portion on the western side of the Halifax River is also Daytona Beach and there is no city simply called "Daytona" at all, however we wind up calling the entire place "Daytona" most often as a type of shorthand.
Once you cross the Halifax though, you're on the beach-side of things: a narrow strip of land between river and sea filled in with homes and businesses and hotels. Despite this prime real estate, Daytona's oceanside portion doesn't feel crowded or overbuilt and a real joy of walking around the streets of this area is to see single-family homes dating from the 1920s onward which are still kept up and in good shape, yet not the huge mansions found near the beach in Palm Beach or Lauderdale. Daytona has always been very much a working-class town both in terms of the majority of its residents and the majority of
its visitors and the homes here by and large reflect this situation.
The hotels in Daytona, even the more impressive ones such as the Hilton, are not sprawling, glossy, complexes of the caliber of Miami's South Beach hotels but instead more typical and sundry hotels. Many of the mid-level ones have very much their own character and most appear to be family-owned. If you examine their websites, many of these hotels and motels boast that clients return year after year and form strong bonds with the families who own these motels. There is, in general, a folksy, welcoming, feeling in Daytona that is more or less absent in beach communities of south Florida.
Back on the mainland, Daytona Beach is a city about many different things: the seat of a number of institutions of higher eduation, the locus and spiritual home of American auto racing, a major player in aviation thanks to its international airport and strong academic ties to the airline industry, and of course a crucial aspect in the motorcycle world.
Auto racing, and by extension motocycle culture, grew out of early races held on the beach itself
but now are highly commercial ventures for Daytona. I will admit I am not, in general, a huge fan of the commercial aspects of Daytona and especially the wanton growth around International Speedway Boulevard. I am thankful this is here for the services it provides to tourists and the jobs it creates for the local economy, but really, most of International Speedway Boulevard is Any-Stripmall USA. The chain restaurants, the fast food joints, the token major mall, the community college, the worn-down private insurance agencies and accountants' offices which have seen better days, the heavy traffic: you could find it all in any major city in Florida from Jacksonville to Miami. There is little of the unique of Daytona to be located on International Speedway Boulevard excepting the Speedway itself.
That said, once you get closer to the Halifax River you will notice that Daytona improves: considerble efforts by the city itself and local businesses in the vicinity of the Carlton Bank Bridge (which carries International Speedway across the Halifax) to add parks and spruce up sidewalks and streets have made this an attractive area. There are a number of interesting shops and places to eat in this area and it is also an integral part of the city center.
Contrary to what some people may assume though, Daytona Beach is not the county seat of Volusia County: DeLand further inland holds that honor. The city of Deltona, also inland, is technically the largest city in the county however this point is up for debate as Deltona includes a lot of smaller communities which, if not thus included, would leave Daytona Beach as the larger city in land area and population alike. Daytona though, hands down, is the regional business and social epicenter of the area-no offense to lovely DeLand and its impressive historic downtown.
Once you get over the bridge and are on the eastern side-the ocean side-of the Halifax, you at once start to notice the impact of being beachfront on the homes, the business, and the architecture here. While much of the older architecture of mainland Daytona is influenced by broad trends and currents in southern architecture in general, you see more of a tropical, Hispanic, influence on the beach-side.
Between the Halifax and A1A, aside from the main streets, most of the area is dedicated to single-family homes and a few offices and small business: once you're near A1A the restaurants, surf shops, and hotels expectedly appear.
Hurricanes have, time and again, taken their toll on this part of Daytona and some damage is still evident and in other places, the signs of fairly recent construction or renovations is telling of the power of nature in a subtropical coastal region. However, there is a silver lining to all this: the need to rebuild has caused newer, often more-impressive, buildings to be constructed between Ora Street and Main Street, near what is now the Hilton Hotel (and once was the Adam's Mark). While the Daytona Beach Pier was once a focal attraction, the construction of the Ocean Walk Shoppes and attached Wyndham Hotel brought a new retail dynamic to this stretch of beach. The Shoppes, which opened in 2001, are a collection of fairly standard food and retail venues (Cold Stone, a Mexican restaurant, Sunglasses Hut), the less-common (Maui Nix Surf Shop), and a ten-theatre movie complex.
In a sense, the Ocean Walk is a microcosm of Daytona itself-or at least of the stereotype of Daytona. There you can find a surf shop, a number of places to eat, and of course, a bar-in this case, the MaiTai Bar which brings forth the atmosphere of the tropics much like Tiki bars in California did years ago. The mai-tai drink itself, and other tropical cocktails, are the highlight of this experience and outdoor seating rounds out the beach-oriented experience soundly. Maui Nix has a larger location on up A1A but their satellite store in the Ocean Walk Shoppes positions surf culture front and center for your average tourist.
As I love and adore surfwear and surf shops (but tend to favor the smaller mom-n-pop variety over the huge scions of industry that places like Ron-Jon and Maui Nix are) I always have to stop in here: what you find is an impressive and authenic selection of surfwear but also a lot of non-surfers shopping. This isn't a bad thing in general, but what they're mostly buying isn't actual surfwear but Bike Week tees and the like. People who don't surf or skate, who were not in Daytona for Bike Week most probably (or else they'd have purchased their tees then), buying shirts at a surf shop mainly catering to non-surfers . . . it's a little sad. But it's also Daytona for you, and the commercial side of Florida's tourism base in general, at that. Supply and demand. That all said, if you want a nice pair of boardshorts you'll find them at either of the Maui Nix locations.
Beyond the MaiTai Bar right on the beach sits the Daytona Beach Bandshell-a stage and seating/standing area for concerts and the like which has been part of the Daytona scene since the 1936. Everyone from folksingers to jazz bands to teen-pop star Aaron Carter have performed here and even when nothing is going on, the architecture of the bandshell and surrounding area is interesting and makes a nice contrast to the nearly brand-new Ocean Walk.
At night, this is a haunting place to walk around with the music and laughter of the Ocean Walk drifting out on one side and the noise of the ocean itself on the other. There is something peaceful and introspective about just being out here at times. This is the heart of Daytona's beachfront, and there's a lot of history here even if it's not always evident in the midst of newer construction and the blanket of tourism. One of the hardest things I think for tourists in any locale that has an economy based on tourism to understand-be that Savannah or Williamsburg or Daytona-is that people actually live here: not far from all these hotels and the Ocean Walk is Seabreeze High School. People live and work and go to school here in Daytona, and to me the daily life of a community is often far more exciting and interesting than anything that can be manifest as a tourist attraction.
Still, if you're visiting Daytona you'll want a place to stay, places to eat, and the like.
Things to see. There is no greater, more lasting, attraction to me than the beach itself. Just being on the beach in nearly any weather (aside from central Florida's famed summer thunderstorms) is great. I always like to stay on the beach, in a cheaper, older, and more intimate motel such as the Rainbow Inn or the larger but still quirky Desert Inn but alas, a lot of these family-owned motels are being sold off, torn down, and replaced with more corporate affairs. The Desert Inn deserves special mention as it has made a name for itself both in catering to the college spring break set and to families with young kids: the combined effort has created a glossy, undersea-themed, palace which looks like Las Vegas as imagined by third graders. The Rainbow, on the other hand, which I fear now to be no more, was a simple two-story affair and had pic-nic tables and benches out by the side yard where a friend and I ate our Cuban sandwiches from the Publix on up A1A. This Publix, incidently, is one of a handful of small Publixi remaining without comprehensive renovations and still has that small-town feel to it-very appropriate for the beach.
Restaurants abound in Daytona and range from fast food to high-end seafood and everything in between. Rather than hitting the local Wendy's though, I would suggest for fast food the Napoli Pizza at the corner of A1A and Ora Street-and they're open late, too. Shell's Seafoord, further south on A1A at 5th Street is a good place for quality seafood, albeit a chain and not having any real local color so to speak of though I cannot complain about the quality of the food overall.
There is probably better fish to be netted though: Boston's Fish House (1414 South Atlantic Ave, New Smyrna Beach) is a local favorite but a drive from Daytona proper a ways south. Another place locals swear by is Aunt Catfish's (4009 Halifax Drive, Port Orange) but again, this is a drive out of Daytona and to the south. In the same shopping center as the Publix mentioned above is Bertie's Lunchonette (2575 N Atlantic Avenue), a fine Jewish-style deli with great prices and yummy sandwiches and other staple breakfast and lunch dishes. The Starlight Diner, on the western side of A1A near the Ocean Walk Shoppes, is also a local standard and serves up good hamburgers and waffles. Nothing fancy, but in walking distance from a lot of motels and always attracting a colorful crowd.
In the Daytona Beach area there's a lot to see other than just the beach or the racing-related attractions on the mainland: driving south on A1A you come to the small town of Ponce Inlet and the Ponce de León Inlet itself where stands a fine example of lighthouse architecture: the Ponce de León Inlet Light.
One of the tallest remaining lighthouses in the south (only one at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, is taller), this lighthouse is now the centerpiece of a park containing nature trails and splendid beaches. Like many lighthouses, this one was turned over by the U.S. Coast Guard to local authorities when the Coast Guard no longer needed a manned light-station at the inlet (navigational duties were continued by a new automated facility at nearby New Smyrna Beach). Now, as a museum, history lives on. Aside from the lighthouse itself the park is noted for its unspoiled beaches and view of the inlet; allow at least a couple hours to see it all.
If you wish to see Daytona Beach simply as a beach resort town, or as the site of the famed Speedway, or as the locus of Bike Week, then it's possible to think of the city in these ways. However, Daytona is much more and in my experience the best way to see and appreciate this special place is to walk around it some. Whether you're walking along the beach, down Ora Street off of A1A, or Main Street a little further down, or over on the mainland side near the
river, you'll find a somewhat quirky but very enchanting city.
MIKE WALKER is a writer and journalist based in Gainesville, Florida. He contributes to a variety of publications in the areas of music, ecology, natural history, and pop culture. Mike may be reached at: cloudrace@prontomail.com
