West Palm Beach

The Breakers West Palm Beach golf course is just one reason to stay at a fabulous West Palm Beach resort on your Florida vacation.

Sure, all the big celebrities come here. But running into Donald Trump or Bill Clinton at the Breakers West Palm Beach golf course is just one of the reasons to stay at a West Palm Beach resort for your vacation. The Palm Beach area stretches from Boca Raton in the south to Jupiter in the north, and is home a world-class art museum, an outstanding Japanese garden, and the Professional Golfers’ Association.

Palm Beach is the traditional winter home of America's aristocracy, including the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, and the Vanderbilts. In the 1920s Gatsby-era, developer Addison Mizner began building homes, stores, and public buildings here in a Moorish-Gothic style that has influenced virtually all the landmarks of the community. Today “the island” is one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the world.

Across Lake Worth lies West Palm Beach. Here you’ll find the shops and restaurants of Clematis Street and the $60 million Kravis Center for the Performing Arts.

The Breakers opened in 1896 and has been a hotel legend ever since. The sprawling, 140-acre oceanfront Italian Renaissance-style landmark resort has 569 rooms, 57 suites, 10 tennis courts, eight restaurants, four swimming pools, three fitness centers, two 18-hole championship golf courses, and a 20,000 square foot spa. And of course, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, darling.

The Flagler Museum is located in the Standard Oil baron Henry Flagler’s Gilded Age estate, Whitehall, also known as the "Taj Mahal of North America.” View period European art, antique, and furnishings and climb aboard his personal railroad car, then enjoy a civilized cup of afternoon tea the Whitehall Café.

Steel magnate Ralph H. Norton built in the Norton Museum of Art in 1941. This world-class museum has an extensive permanent collection of 19th- and 20th-century American and European paintings. The American galleries contain major works by Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock. The French collection contains Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings by Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, and Renoir. And the Chinese collection contains more then 200 bronzes, jades, and ceramics, as well as monumental Buddhist sculptures.

The rambling PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach is the national headquarters of the Professional Golfers’ Association. This premier golf destination has five 18-hole courses on more than 2,300 acres. West Palm Beach golf is superb at the Tom Fazio-designed Emerald Dunes Golf Course, a public course featuring 60 acres of water and stunning views of the ocean. And you’ll find the legendary 27 holes of Boca Teeca Country club in Boca Raton.

From May to October, nesting sea turtles return to the shores near the Loggerhead Park Marine Life Center of Juno Beach, after a 2000 mile odyssey. Once their baby turtles hatch, the must race to the sea before becoming prey to sea birds. These hatchlings are drawn to light, so local laws restrict lighting during nesting months.

West of Delray Beach, gardeners will enjoy the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens. Across the street is the 20,000 square foot headquarters of the American Orchid Society.