Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale Travel Guide

Collegiates of the 1960s returning to Fort Lauderdale for vacations today would be hard pressed to recognize the onetime "Sun and Suds Spring Break Capital of the Universe." Back then, Fort Lauderdale's beachfront was lined with T-shirt shops, and downtown consisted of a lone office tower, dilapidated buildings, and motley other structures waiting to be razed. Today, the beach has upscale shops and restaurants, and downtown growth of recent years has exploded with luxury resort hotels equipped with enough high-octane amenities to light up skies all the way to western Broward's Alligator Alley. At risk of losing small-town 45-rpm magic in iPod times, Greater Fort Lauderdale somehow seems to be melding disparate eras into nouveau nirvana, seasoned with a little Gold Coast sand.