FORT LAUDERDALE · FLORIDA · THE CITY GUIDE
Fort Lauderdale sells a beach, and the State of Florida has counted that beach for you, down to the foot. The inventory Tallahassee publishes gives Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park 1,410 parking spaces, 2.2 miles of sand, 2.6 miles of hiking trail and 4,531 feet of boardwalk. North of it, inside the city, Hugh Taylor Birch State Park counts 275 parking spaces, 0.1 miles of beach, 0.3 miles of trail and 60 feet of boardwalk. Each one holds a single designated swimming area.
That count decides more than a morning. Aim the car at Mizell-Johnson and there are 1,410 spaces to land in. At Birch, 275 is the ceiling, so the park you pick sets the hour you leave the hotel. The same arithmetic runs through the bill: Broward County adds a 6.0% transient rental tax to every night booked, on top of the 6% state sales tax, and a resort fee the property sets for itself belongs to neither.
THE CITY AT A GLANCE · FORT LAUDERDALE
Fort Lauderdale is a beach city whose sand comes pre-counted by the state: choose your park by its parking lot, and add 12% to whatever nightly rate you were quoted.
FLL: LARGE HUB · 12% ON EVERY NIGHT · TWO STATE PARKS ON THE OCEAN
Go for: two documented pieces of ocean coast with the state’s own counts attached, a large-hub airport at 17,096,131 boardings in 2024, and the option of sleeping in a state park cabin inside the metro area.
Think twice before: planning an arrival around a bus or a park gate. No fare and no opening hour could be verified here, and none was invented to cover the gap.
Parks: Florida DEP inventory, 2024 · Airport: FAA CY2024 boardings · Tax: Florida DOR DR-15TDT (rev. 03/25) · full sources below
On this page
- Beaches and state parks in Fort LauderdaleMizell-Johnson, Hugh Taylor Birch and Oleta River
- Flying into Fort Lauderdale (FLL)17,096,131 boardings, and what we could not price
- Hotel taxes and resort fees in Broward CountyThe 12% on every night booked
- Best time to visit Fort LauderdaleDry season, storm season and the airport thermometer
- Bus and train fares in Broward CountyThe gap we could not read
- The rest of FloridaThe statewide orientation guide
One gap, stated before you plan around it. No bus or train fare appears anywhere in these pages for Fort Lauderdale, and no park entrance fee or opening hour either. We could not read the operators: Broward County Transit’s pages render only inside a browser, and the other fare pages we tried refused machine reads or returned errors on September 11, 2026. No amount was estimated to fill the hole. Call the operator, or the park gate, before you build a day on either.
What is there to do in Fort Lauderdale?
Start with the two state parks, since they are the two stretches of coast somebody has actually measured. Mizell-Johnson, next to Port Everglades in Dania Beach and outside Fort Lauderdale’s city limits, carries the long end: 2.2 miles of beach, one designated swimming area, 2.6 miles of hiking trail and 4,531 feet of boardwalk. Hugh Taylor Birch, off Sunrise Boulevard in the city itself, is the compact one: 0.1 miles of beach, 0.3 miles of trail, 60 feet of boardwalk and a single canoe, kayak and tube launch on the water inside the park.
The third name belongs to a different county. Oleta River State Park lies south in Miami-Dade, on the bay side, and holds 14 cabins, 925 parking spaces, 0.3 miles of beach and two canoe, kayak and tube launches. Sleeping in a state park without ever leaving the metro area is a genuinely odd option to have on the table. Entrance fees and gate hours come from the park and change, and we could not verify either. The wider Florida menu sits in things to do and Florida with kids.
Which airport do you fly into for Fort Lauderdale?
| The question | What we can state | Source status |
|---|---|---|
| How big is FLL? | 17,096,131 passengers boarded in calendar year 2024 | FAA, CY2024 boardings |
| How is it classed? | A large hub, in the FAA’s classification | FAA, CY2024 boardings |
| What does the bus into town cost? | Not verified: the county transit fare page renders only inside a browser | Read attempt, Sept 11, 2026 |
| First and last departure? | Same gap: no schedule we were able to read | Read attempt, Sept 11, 2026 |
| Park entrance fee? | Set by the park, and not readable at the time of writing | Read attempt, Sept 11, 2026 |
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International boarded 17,096,131 passengers in calendar year 2024, which puts it in the FAA’s large hub class. That volume is the reason FLL keeps turning up as the cheaper way into South Florida for a trip people assume starts in Miami, a comparison we make in the Florida flights guide.
Between the terminal curb and a hotel lobby, though, we have no verified number to hand you. Broward County Transit publishes its routes and fares on a page that renders only inside a browser, and we could not read it on September 11, 2026. So the ride into town stays unpriced here: no fare, no frequency, no last departure. Confirm with the operator or with your hotel before an arrival plan depends on a bus.
A rental car remains the default for Broward County, and the statewide quirks that catch visitors, electronic-only tolls and beachfront parking charges among them, are laid out in getting around Florida. Brightline’s city-to-city trains call at Fort Lauderdale too. If you are chaining this stop with Miami or Key West, settle the car question before you book the room, because parking becomes a nightly line at exactly the oceanfront properties.
What does a hotel night cost in Fort Lauderdale?
Every night booked in Broward County carries two taxes: the county’s 6.0% transient rental tax, collected alongside the 6% state sales tax. Twelve percent, then, on the rate you were quoted, before the property adds anything of its own. The resort fee is the item to ask about at booking, since the hotel sets it, the hotel keeps it, and it is not a tax. Room rates themselves swing too hard by week and by address for us to crown a cheap month. The 12% does not swing. Budget shapes for the state live in what a Florida trip costs, and bases in where to stay.
Fort Lauderdale month by month. Each month has its own page with the station normals, the sea temperature, the daylight and how busy the month runs: January · February · March · April · May · June · July · August · September · October · November · December.
When to go. The month-by-month case for Fort Lauderdale — what the normals say, when the sea is warm enough to swim and which weeks fill up — sits on the best time to visit Fort Lauderdale.
Choosing between them. Miami or Fort Lauderdale sets the two side by side on the points that decide it — the season, the cost of getting there and what each one closes off.
When is the best time to visit Fort Lauderdale?
Sources & data for this guide
- State park counts: parking spaces, swimming areas, beach and trail mileage, boardwalk footage, cabins · Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Recreational Facilities Inventory, 2024 annual report (PDF, 374 pages) · read Sept 11, 2026
- FLL passenger boardings (17,096,131, CY2024) and large hub class · Federal Aviation Administration · read Sept 8, 2026
- 6.0% Broward transient rental tax alongside the 6% state sales tax · Florida Department of Revenue, form DR-15TDT, revision 03/25 · read Sept 11, 2026
- Temperature station identity: NOAA station USW00012849, “FT LAUDERDALE HOLLYWOOD AP” · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station name verified through the NCEI Search service · Sept 11, 2026
- Editorial admission: no bus or train fare, no park entrance fee and no opening hour appears in this file. On Sept 11, 2026, broward.org/BCT rendered client-side only, gohart.org returned 404, psta.net did not respond and tampaairport.com returned 403. Nothing was estimated to cover the gap.
- Dry and wet season framing, hurricane dates · see our statewide calendar and its sources · checked Sep 11, 2026
Florida runs a dry season from November through April and a wet one from May through October, and the statewide case for it sits in when to visit Florida. Hurricane season is the other calendar to respect: June 1 to November 30, with the statistical peak around September 10. For a beach week in Broward County, that pushes the reliable window into winter and early spring, and the price of the reliability is company on 2.2 miles of sand.
Every figure here about Fort Lauderdale’s temperature traces back to one thermometer, not a grid cell: NOAA station USW00012849, listed as “FT LAUDERDALE HOLLYWOOD AP”. The gauge sits at the airport, about three miles inland from the sand. An inland reading and a beachfront one part company on any sea-breeze afternoon, so take an airport normal as the neighborhood’s number and expect the shoreline to run its own.
Before it changes the weather, the season changes the parking. The 275 spaces at Hugh Taylor Birch are the tightest of the three counts here, and the 1,410 at Mizell-Johnson the most forgiving. If winter rates in town look punishing, the 14 cabins at Oleta River are the metro area’s strangest bed, on the bay side, with two launches on site and 925 spaces around them. They are booked through the park, and we hold no rate for them.
Pick the park before the hotel and this city gets simple: 4,531 feet of boardwalk at one end of the choice, 60 feet at the other, one designated swimming area at each. Then add 12% to the quoted rate, ask what the resort fee is before you click, and ring the gate for its hours, because we could not verify them. From there, work outward with the Florida orientation guide.