By Brian French
Top 10 Fun Things to Do in Fort Lauderdale, Florida When You Need a Break from Your Florida Business
Put the phone down. Step away from the laptop. The Venice of America is right outside your door — and it has 300 miles of reasons to get on the water.
There comes a moment in every Florida entrepreneur’s week — usually somewhere between the third back-to-back Zoom call and the realization that you’ve eaten lunch at your desk four days in a row — when your brain quietly stages a revolt. The words on the screen stop making sense. The numbers blur together. The decisions feel heavier than they should.
That’s your cue. Fort Lauderdale is calling.
Known as the “Venice of America” for its extraordinary network of more than 300 miles of navigable canals, intracoastal waterways, and rivers, Fort Lauderdale is one of those Florida cities that rewards the person willing to actually leave their office and explore it. Once synonymous with spring-break chaos, the city has spent the past two decades reinventing itself into something genuinely sophisticated — a thriving culinary scene, world-class marine adventures, a beach promenade that belongs on a postcard, and a waterfront energy that makes every other Florida city feel slightly landlocked by comparison.
The best part? Whether you need two hours or two days, Fort Lauderdale has a version of a proper break that will fit your schedule and send you back to work feeling like a human being again.
Here are the 10 best ways to spend it.
1. Ride the Water Taxi Through the Canals — All Day 🚤
Fort Lauderdale’s canals are not a tourist gimmick. They are a genuinely functional, genuinely beautiful way to move through the city — and the hop-on, hop-off Water Taxi is one of the most satisfying ways to spend an entire afternoon with no agenda whatsoever.
With access to more than 30 stops along the city’s waterways, the Water Taxi lets you drift from the Fort Lauderdale Riverwalk to Las Olas Boulevard to Bahia Mar Marina to the Stranahan House to the Las Olas isles without ever getting into a car, fighting traffic, or making a plan. The narrated routes give you the history and stories behind what you’re passing — the mega-yachts at Port Everglades, the waterfront mansions along Millionaires Row with homes that start at $10 million, the historic New River winding through the city’s oldest neighborhoods.
Go on a weekday, buy the all-day pass, and give yourself permission to just ride. Hop off wherever looks interesting, grab lunch or a drink, and hop back on. This is one of the genuinely great low-effort, high-reward afternoons available anywhere in South Florida.
Pro tip: Board at the Riverwalk stop in the morning and work your way outward as the day goes on. The Millionaires Row segment in the late afternoon, with the sun catching the water and the yachts glowing in the light, is genuinely cinematic.
2. Cruise Millionaires Row by Private Boat 🛥️
If the Water Taxi gives you the communal version of Fort Lauderdale’s waterways, a private boat charter gives you the unfiltered, at-your-own-pace, cold-drink-in-hand version. Fort Lauderdale is the yachting capital of the world — that title is not self-appointed, it is earned — and the stretch of Intracoastal Waterway known as Millionaires Row is one of the most extraordinary displays of private wealth you will see anywhere on the planet.
The homes along this stretch begin at $10 million. Some have indoor aquariums built into their living rooms. Some have pools that flow directly through the house. The yachts moored outside them belong to people whose net worth has more zeros than most of us are comfortable contemplating. Floating past it all on a 90-minute private charter, drink in hand, while a captain points out which celebrities own which compounds — that is an experience that never quite gets old, no matter how many times you do it.
Book a sunset departure for the full effect. The light over the Intracoastal as the sky shifts from gold to deep orange, with the skyline of Fort Lauderdale behind you and the open Atlantic ahead, is the kind of view that reminds you exactly why you chose to build your business in South Florida.
Pro tip: Several operators depart directly from the New River downtown, making them easy to reach without a car. Book 24 hours ahead, especially on weekends — the best sunset slot times fill quickly.
3. Spend a Day on Fort Lauderdale Beach 🏖️
Seven miles of white sand and warm Atlantic water, a landscaped promenade with the signature white wave wall, palm trees, and the kind of beach energy that feels polished but not pretentious. Fort Lauderdale Beach has shed its rowdy spring-break reputation and emerged as one of the most genuinely enjoyable urban beaches in the entire state — close enough to downtown to be convenient, wide enough to always find space, and lined with options ranging from quiet beach chairs to jet ski rentals to rooftop bar views of the Atlantic.
The water temperature averages 79 degrees. The promenade is wide and beautifully kept, ideal for a long morning walk or run before the day heats up. And unlike Miami Beach, you can actually find parking, have a conversation without competing with amplified music, and enjoy the ocean without feeling like you’ve been dropped into a festival by accident.
For a Florida business owner who spends most of their working life inside an air-conditioned office, simply lying on the sand with the sun and salt air doing their thing is one of the most effective mental resets available. No booking required.
Pro tip: Go early — by 9 a.m. on a weekday you’ll have long stretches of beach essentially to yourself. The beach promenade stretches from the main beach all the way north to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, a charming, walkable beach town well worth the stroll.
4. Snorkel or Scuba Dive the Shipwrecks 🤿
Here is something most people — including many Fort Lauderdale business owners — don’t know about the city they operate in: Fort Lauderdale is the Shipwreck Capital of the United States, with more than 76 shipwrecks lying just offshore within recreational dive limits. The Florida Reef Tract runs along the coast here — the world’s third longest barrier reef system — and the combination of reef, wrecks, and Gulf Stream-warmed clear water makes Fort Lauderdale one of the best diving destinations in the continental United States.
You don’t need to be a certified diver to get in the water. Sea Experience and other local operators run daily snorkel trips to shallow reefs where you can fin over corals and around schools of tropical fish just minutes from shore. For certified divers, the wreck dives — artificial reefs teeming with marine life, some of them sunk deliberately to create habitat — are genuinely world-class. The visibility here can exceed 80 feet on a good day.
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea at Anglin’s Pier Reef offers snorkeling directly from the beach — no boat required — which is about as accessible an underwater experience as exists anywhere in the state.
Pro tip: Schedule your water adventure for a low-wind morning — windy days mean chop, and chop means a less pleasant experience regardless of skill level. Most operators will happily advise you on conditions before you book.
5. Stroll Las Olas Boulevard — Fort Lauderdale’s Living Room 🌴
Las Olas Boulevard is Spanish for “The Waves,” and the name fits — the boulevard flows from downtown Fort Lauderdale all the way to the beach in a continuous current of restaurants, galleries, boutiques, al fresco dining, art walks, and the particular kind of pleasant, purpose-free wandering that every entrepreneur secretly craves.
The ten blocks closest to the beach are the most celebrated: Mediterranean architecture, palm-shaded sidewalk cafes with their tables spilling onto the boulevard, art galleries hosting works that range from accessible to genuinely challenging, boutiques that mix local designers with international names, and the kind of afternoon crowd that makes people-watching a worthwhile activity in itself.
Go on a weekday afternoon and you’ll find the boulevard at its most relaxed — locals grabbing lunch at sidewalk tables, gallery owners happy to talk about their artists, and the beach just a few blocks ahead as a reward for whenever you want it.
Don’t miss: The Elbo Room at the corner of Las Olas and A1A — a Fort Lauderdale institution for more than 75 years and one of those places that has somehow remained genuinely fun through every iteration of the city’s personality.
6. Take a Gondola Ride Through the Canals ❤️
Las Olas Gondola calls theirs “the only true gondola in the country,” and the claim is not without merit. The romantic ride winds through Fort Lauderdale’s canals in the city’s most intimate, unhurried fashion — no engines, no narration track, just the sound of water, the scenery of waterfront estates and flowering tropical gardens drifting past, and a guide who knows the history and stories of every stretch of waterway.
For Florida business owners who spend their days moving fast and making decisions, a gondola ride is a deliberate act of slowness. It forces you into a pace that nothing in your professional life can match. Sunsets are the prime booking time, and the views of Fort Lauderdale’s skyline and canal neighborhoods in that golden light are something that photographs but doesn’t quite translate — you have to be there.
This is an ideal date-night experience, a memorable team reward for key employees, or simply a solo afternoon when you need the canal system to do something other than host your daily commute.
Pro tip: Book at least a week in advance for weekend sunset slots — they sell out. Weekday afternoons are often available with shorter notice and are equally beautiful.
7. Explore the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens 🌺
Hidden in plain sight between Fort Lauderdale Beach and the Intracoastal, the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens is one of the most quietly extraordinary places in all of South Florida. Built by artists Frederic and Evelyn Bartlett as their winter retreat in the 1920s, the 35-acre estate is a preserved slice of old Florida that feels genuinely removed from the city that has grown up around it — tropical jungle, flowering gardens, native wildlife, and a main house that contains the Bartletts’ personal art collection, their carousel figurines, and the kind of eccentric architectural details that only people who were both very wealthy and very creative would think to include.
Flamingos wander the grounds. Swans drift on the pond. Wild monkeys have reportedly taken up residence in the surrounding trees. The whole property has an atmosphere of beautiful, slightly surreal preservation — the feeling of stepping through a door into someone else’s extraordinary life, exactly as they left it.
A self-guided tour takes about 90 minutes and costs less than most business lunches. It’s one of those Fort Lauderdale experiences that locals frequently recommend and visitors never forget.
Don’t miss: The orchid room inside the main house — Evelyn Bartlett’s collection has been continuously maintained since the 1920s and is simply spectacular.
8. Hugh Taylor Birch State Park: A Green Oasis Between the Ocean and the Intracoastal 🌿
Most people driving down A1A between downtown Fort Lauderdale and the beach don’t realize that the narrow strip of green between the road and the Intracoastal Waterway is a state park — 180 acres of coastal hammock, mangroves, and native Florida habitat sandwiched between some of the most expensive real estate in the country.
Hugh Taylor Birch State Park was the first urban wilderness area in Florida, and it remains one of the most accessible natural escapes in the city. The cypresses and palm trees form a genuine canopy. Boardwalks wind through the mangroves alongside the river. Kayak and canoe rentals are available right inside the park. The hiking and biking trails are peaceful enough on a weekday morning that you can genuinely forget, for long stretches, that you are in the middle of a major metropolitan area.
For a Florida business owner whose entire working life happens indoors or on screens, an hour in this park — walking slowly, listening to birds, watching the light filter through the canopy — is the kind of decompression that no productivity app has ever managed to replicate.
Pro tip: Rent a kayak and paddle the short water trail along the Intracoastal side of the park. The perspective from the water, with the park on one side and Fort Lauderdale’s luxury high-rises on the other, is one of the more visually striking contrasts the city offers.
9. Take an Airboat Tour Into the Everglades 🐊
Fort Lauderdale’s location makes it one of the most convenient launch points in South Florida for a half-day Everglades experience — and the Everglades, even on a short visit, has the quality of a world entirely unlike the one where your business lives and your decisions happen.
Sawgrass Recreation Park, about 30 minutes west of downtown, offers some of the most accessible airboat tours in South Florida. You board a flat-bottomed airboat, strap on ear protection, and then someone fires up an aircraft engine mounted behind you and sends you blasting through the sawgrass prairie at speed — past alligators sunning on the banks, herons lifting off from the water, and vast horizontal landscapes that make the skyline you just left behind feel like a very small, very recent interruption in something ancient and enormous.
The best operators include wildlife exhibits where you can hold an alligator, see Florida panthers in their habitat, and learn about the ecology of the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. A half-day trip — two to three hours from leaving your office to returning — provides a complete gear-shift in perspective that is genuinely difficult to achieve any other way.
Pro tip: Go on a weekday morning when the tour groups are smaller and the wildlife is most active. The Everglades at dawn, with the mist still on the water and the birds calling through it, is an experience worth the early alarm.
10. Sunset Parasailing Above the Atlantic 🪂
The list ends here, at about 400 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, where Fort Lauderdale looks like a miniature version of itself below you, the water shifts from turquoise to deep blue at the reef line, and your mind, unburdened of every pending task and unanswered email, goes briefly and blissfully silent.
Parasailing off Fort Lauderdale Beach is one of those activities that every local intends to do “someday” and most never get around to. Don’t be that person. The certified operators departing from Bahia Mar Marina run safe, professional trips — up to three people can go up together — and the experience of being pulled silently above the coastline while Fort Lauderdale’s skyline, the Intracoastal, and the open Atlantic all spread out below you is something no conference room, no strategy session, and no productivity tool can come close to replicating.
At 400 feet, the emails can wait. The spreadsheets can wait. Everything, briefly, can wait. And when you come back down, it turns out that ten minutes of that kind of perspective makes all the decisions waiting for you feel measurably more manageable.
Pro tip: Book a morning departure for the calmest water conditions and the best views of the coastline in full sunshine. The boat captain will time your ride to the best wind conditions of the day.
Fort Lauderdale Will Still Be Here When You Get Back
The businesses built by Florida entrepreneurs are sustained by more than hustle and hours. They’re built on clarity, creativity, and the kind of energy that only comes from actually taking a break — a real one, not the kind where you check your phone every 20 minutes from a beach chair.
Fort Lauderdale makes real breaks easy. Its canals are waiting. The Atlantic is warm. The gondola captain knows the good routes. The alligators are keeping their schedule regardless of yours.
Close the laptop. Come back better.
Have a Fort Lauderdale favorite we didn’t include? Share it in the comments — South Florida business owners help each other find the best spots.
