New Trip Planning Tools for Florida’s Space Coast
Centrally located in Florida, 45-minutes east of Orlando, Florida´s Space Coast is a destination which combines sandy beaches, world-famous surfing, a dense natural landscape around the inland waterways, a bustling cruise port and regular rocket launches. This year visitors to the region have new planning tools at their disposal, with the updated website now offering a new itinerary planning tool.
Holiday planners can scroll through the website and explore the vast array of activties on offer; covering topics such as attractions, museums, beaches, communities, local restaurants and tours. By selecting “Add to Trip” any given activitiy will automatically be listed under the “My Itinerary” tab in an overview format. The itinerary can be downloaded and also shared with travelling companions or friends with a single click. The “My Map” option presents all chosen activities on a colour-coded map of the region, which is most useful as the region’s Atlantic coastline stretches more than 70 miles, with the Intracoastal Waterway and the inland communities enhancing the region further.
The highlight of every visit is the prospect of experiencing a live rocket-launch. Last year 72 rockets launches took place in the region, with more planned in 2024. The chance of actually witnessing a launch has never been has likely as it is now. Florida´s Space Coast Office of Tourism has a number of tools in place to facilitate rocket-launch viewing. The launch tab on the website presents all immediate upcoming launches with a schedule, while the launch viewing map illustrates a multitude of locations for the actual viewing. These include NASA suggested sites, restaurants, parks, hotels, boat ramps and even boating and kayaking tours as well as locations more suitable for nighttime viewing. The launches can be viewed from almost anywhere in the Space Coast region.
A useful addition is the Space Coast launch app which is available for Apple and Android phones and presents the launch schedule from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, launch notifications at T-2 hours and T-5 minutes, live camera launch coverage with audio when available and also a compass feature for use when in the destination pointing towards the correct launch pad. The app also supplies useful information on the actual launch.
Another live feature are the surf cameras which are to be found in six locations throughout the area: Two on Cocoa Beach at the Best Western and Hampton Inn hotels, Indialantic, Jetty Park, Satellite Beach and Sebastian Inlet. Avid surfers can check-out the waves online before setting out for the day.
All visitors are encouraged to make use of the online Vacation Planner offering over 30 pages of useful information, including a digital map of the region. Once in the area the Visitor Information Center at 267 W. Cocoa Beach Causeway, Cocoa Beach, 32931 Florida provides local information and as well as some popular photo opportunities.