New Smyrna Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, U.S., located on the central east coast of the state, with the Atlantic Ocean to the east.
How to get there: It is about 32km south of Daytona Beach, reachable from the Daytona Beach International Airport, Orlando International Airport, or Jacksonville International Airport.
Florida’s popular tourist town with a beach of the same name, has something for everyone: art, history, surfing, shopping and food.
The town’s history dates back to 1768, when a Scottish physician and around 1,300 Spaniards landed up. It remained a quiet settlement with its own industry like sugar and saw mills. On Christmas Day in 1835, the mills, along with the other buildings, were destroyed by Native Americans during the Second Seminole War, leaving only the walls standing. (These ruins are a major tourist attractions today.)
The sparsely populated town of 125 came to life in 1892, when the Henry Flagler provided rail service giving rise to the town’s new resort status.
The resort status fits New Smyrna Beach perfectly with a beach stretching up to 20 km, 300 surfable days a year, great fishing, and sea life.
In fact, it has consistently been recognised as one of the “best surf towns” and even “one of the world’s top 20 surf towns”, according to National Geographic . The town’s surfing scene is so legendary that there is even a Museum of East Coast Surfing, which began as an exhibit of surf artefacts.
But despite all this one of the many titles the town has is “Shark Attack Capital of the World” according to the Guinness Book of World Records . New Smyrna Beach consistently tops the list for the most number of recorded shark bites in the world: 15 in 2016; nine in 2017; and four in 2018. Experts feel that this is because of the beach’s reputation as a top surf destination; this means there are a lot of people in the water at any given point in time. According to the Miami Herald , the surf “inhibits visibility, sharks react to splashes like those made by surfers paddling to catch a wave, and bite blindly”.
Sights
The beach offers other pastimes such as fishing — a popular hobby among locals and tourists alike; cruising and guided kayak tours — to get close-up views of the manatees and dolphins among the mangrove inlets of the area; and plane rides in an open-cockpit vintage biplane, and if you’re really up for it, with “Performance Maneuvers” options.
The Indian River Lagoon close to the beach, is the most biologically diverse estuary in North America, boasting of more than 4,000 species of plants and animals.
The town of New Smyrna Beach is also known for being one of “America’s Top Small Cities for the Arts” owing to the many facilities and galleries, and arts shows that take place throughout the year. There’s the Atlantic Center for the Arts, an artists-in-residence community and educational facility; the Harris House; the Little Theatre; Arts on Douglas.
