Daytona Beach

In early 2019, I traveled to Daytona Beach, a city on the east coast of Florida. I wrote about that trip in late 2022, more than three years after I actually took it. At that time in 2019, I thought I’d come back to Florida the next year, not knowing what March 2020 would bring. Finally, almost five years later, I got another opportunity to travel to Florida last month, this time for the wedding of the same friend.

I flew into the Orlando airport the night before the wedding, rented a car, and drove the hour east to Daytona Beach. It was my first time ever driving in Florida, but the GPS on my phone told me where to go.

The next morning, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, and it felt great to be wearing shorts, a tank top and sandals in November. I went to see if I could take a walk on the beach, but the area was closed due to unsafe tide conditions. I was still able to see the beach from a sightseeing platform, the view of the coast relaxing me.

Later that morning, I decided to drive over to the Daytona International Speedway, home of the NASCAR Daytona 500 race every February. My dad watched the race on television pretty much every year when I was growing up, being a former amateur driver himself as a young adult.

The tour of the race track was an experience. We rode out onto the track in a tram towed by a pickup truck driven by our tour guide. The guide pointed out the “banked” curves, slanted at a certain angle so the race cars can go around them seamlessly. I learned about how spotters are stationed at different places around the track to look for debris that could cause damage to the cars. We even got to stop and stand on the finish line, walk around victory lane, and admire the view from the grandstands. It felt surreal to be standing in a place that I’d seen multiple times on television. I was also amazed at how large the whole venue is, spanning over 400 acres.

The rest of the day passed with having fun at my friend’s wedding and reception. Overall, it felt great to be able to finally return to Florida for a reason. I hope to make it back there soon (and for real this time.)

While looking through some old pictures recently, I found ones from March 2019, when I traveled to Daytona Beach, Florida, to visit a friend, and realized that I had never written about that trip.

Traveling to Daytona Beach was only the second time I’d been on the east coast of Florida. When I was young back in the mid-1990s, my family and I used to go visit my snowbird grandparents in Panama City Beach on Florida’s panhandle, usually around February, though the trips stopped by 1997. My other journeys down to Florida include trips to Disney World in 2006 and 2009, and to Port Canaveral in 2018 for a bachelorette cruise.

Daytona Beach is a popular vacation destination, but it also has some history to it. Most people know it as the site of the Daytona 500 NASCAR race. Before they built Daytona International Speedway in the late 1950s, the race was held ON the actual beach. I don’t know of a lot of beaches on the east coast that contain that kind of history, and it remains one of the few beaches that you’re allowed to drive your car directly onto.

Most of my time spent there was, of course, on the beach. March was a nice time of year to go because it wasn’t too hot. I remember relishing the feel of real sand on my bare feet as my friend and I walked to find a spot. Once we sat down, I took a look up and down the coast, struck by how long the beach was. Despite the cooler temperature, I was careful to put on lots of sunscreen and wear a sun hat, not wanting a repeat of the intense sunburn I had suffered on my Bahamas cruise the year before. The chairs my friend had for us even had a little shade on the top.

Reading on the beach in the shade top chair

At one point, my friend and I actually drove by the NASCAR racetrack itself. I have been to many sports arenas over the years, but I had never seen a NASCAR racetrack in person. I was struck by just how massive it was as we drove around the outside, which took several minutes. My friend explained that the site sits on hundreds of acres and that she can actually hear the race sounds from several miles away.

Our last stop before I flew back to D.C. was to a seafood restaurant in Titusville. Being from Upstate New York, most of the seafood I ate growing up was either store bought frozen fish sticks or the fish that we caught on vacation on the St. Lawrence River. I’ve come to love shrimp though, and was excited to have real fresh shrimp as a meal, as well as the appetizer of fried donuts.