Known as a surf, sand and space destination, Cocoa Beach in the surrounding area have a rich history
related to famous surfers and launching pads both for rockets and cruise ships.
We're hitting the beach along Florida's Space Coast and getting the lay of the land from locals in this Travels with Darley Podcast.
We'll show you where to shop, eat, grab a happy hour cocktail, listen to live music and make the most out of a family-friendly Cocoa Beach vacation
whether you're traveling for a rocket launch, pre- or post cruise stay, or just want to enjoy access to over 70 miles of beautiful sandy Florida beaches.
I'm a big fan of beach vacations, having grown up myself at the beach.
So in traveling to dive into Cocoa Beach, I wanted to find the best locals to share the places they'd recommend to their family and friends.
In this podcast, we'll meet Jack Kirshenbaum and the leading ladies of the Coco Beach Surf Company to explore downtown Coco Beach.
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Jack Kirshenbaum's family has been in Brevard County since 1958 and he's been in the Cocoa Beach area since he was a child.
So to get a true local's take on Cocoa Beach's history and what I really need to do on my stay here,
I'm enlisting Jack to show me downtown Cocoa Beach.
We're meeting on North Orlando Avenue, smack in the middle of art galleries, restaurants, wine bars, jazz venues,
and other downtown attractions, just steps away from the beach.
Evelyn and I walk past the palm trees along North Orlando Avenue over to City Hall,
past planters artfully painted with colorful beach and island themes.
We went to you down here.
And see some really cute places to pop into later, like Rebellion Beachside Bar & Bistro and
and LUNA Food and Wine.
We're meeting Jack at Café Surfnista, which serves up healthy smoothies, homemade pastries,
organic acai bowls, and cool coffees with an artsy surf vibe.
Jack is seated over past the line of surfboards on a comfy,
shartruce-colored couch under a painting entitled "Once Upon a Time in Coco Beach",
showing the history of the area.
I tell Jack who already has a latte that I'm going to grab a smoothie for our chat
and order up the Waikiki with pineapple coconut, banana, apple, and pineapple juice.
We decide to sit somewhere outside, so Jack can share lay of the land here
in Cocoa Beach.
Cocoa Beach is a unique bubble.
On the south is Patrick Air Force Base, now called Patrick Space Force Base.
On the north is Port Canaveral and Cape Canaveral in the Kennedy Space Center.
On the east is the Atlantic Ocean,
and on the west is the Banana River Lagoon,
so we're a barrier island, stuck out 20 miles from the mainland, separated from most of the reality.
It is truly a bubble. It's often called "Mayberry by the Sea" or "Mayberry on LSD"
depending upon the time.
Oh, I like it!
In this Mayberry Bubble Land, many people adventure just to enjoy the beautiful beaches.
The big wide beaches here in Cocoa Beach are called some of the sandiest beaches in Florida.
The beach here is terrific. The Indian River Lagoon has kayaking, boating,
there's yoga studios, there's wind surfing, any outdoor sport.
We have a championship golf course, tennis course,
Olympic swimming pool, you name it, anything that's recreation we've got.
And you see these two guys over here?
They own a boat company that takes boat tours through the canals and thousand islands,
called Dolphin Tours, and they're guaranteed to show you dolphins if you take their tour.
We want to see Dolphins!
Rusty Buchanan and then Mark Granger.
Jack does know everyone, having grown up here at the beach.
There are these magic of bioluminescence kayaking tours in the Coco Beach area.
Millions of tiny plankton illuminate the water.
In fact, many tourists come to the area in the summer months, they want to see this natural phenomenon.
In Cocoa Beach's Banana River, bioluminescence is available year round,
but it's most vibrant during the late spring and early fall.
Jack continues with his list of things to experience in this adventurous beach destination,
and it goes on and on.
There's the the port and the helicopter rides and the biplane rides.
Downtown, there's tons of restaurants.
You name the kind of restaurants.
There's Cuban restaurants, there's Thai restaurants, there's Japanese restaurants,
there's this is a charcuterie wine bar here.
But how did Cocoa Beach become such a surf, space, and cruise mecca?
Coined by some, the Spaceiest Coast.
I think it's so interesting that there are rockets taking off from here all the time.
Back in the 50s, they decided that Cape Canaveral would be the launching place
to test all the missiles and later astronauts would blast off from here.
And now of course the commercial industry is taken over here.
But in the 50s, in the mid 50s, there were like 500 people in Coco Beach.
And it was a small fishing village, and it's claimed to fame was there were a couple of boats sunk off shore in World War II.
You know, I mean, it was nothing here.
It was developed originally in the 20s and 30s by a lawyer from Georgia name,
Gus Edwards and the development failed.
So there was nothing here.
And then all of a sudden by 1960, there were like 20,000 people here.
All young, all educated, getting ready to send people to the moon.
But as that was happening, the surf craze and Gidgett,
hit Coco Beach in the 60s.
And everybody, everybody surfed.
And all the surf shops opened, Ron Jons included.
And all the surfboards on the East Coast were manufactured here.
It became a surfing space place.
And then tourism and the cruise ships hit.
And Port Canaveral became like the biggest cruise port for passengers in the world.
But because we're out here in the middle of the ocean away from the mainland,
it's just a unique, special, unique, different than any other place place.
Cocoa Beach is a gateway to Port Canaveral.
With close proximity to Kennedy Space Center.
Meaning you can watch launches from the beach and beyond.
Being the closest beach town to Orlando,
visitors can enjoy rocket launches plus attractions plus a beach vacation.
Seeing a rocket launch and especially a crude launch with astronauts on,
you can't imagine the tension in the air.
I mean, you can feel it.
And now they land the boosters back here,
which is like, pirates and Star Wars stuff.
So coming to see a launch, that's the special special event.
If you want to know the must-do's, ask a local.
Jack is the ultimate local.
If I have, you know, 24 hours here, what are you going to tell me to do?
Oh geez.
Go to the Cocoa Beach Pier.
Spend some time on the beach.
Get a surf lesson from the Ron Jon's Surf Shop.
And the beaches here are super accessible.
Every block is a beach access.
From Patrick Air Force Base, all the way to Port Canaveral,
which is, I don't know, 12, 15 miles, there's an access every block.
It's the most public of all public beaches.
Cocoa Beach faces the Atlantic Ocean on Florida's Space Coast,
providing access to consistent surf breaks,
like first peak, the monster hole,
and others that are ideal for long boarding and short boarding.
If you visit, you may also want to catch a major surf event,
like the Easter Surfing Festival, East Coast Surfing Championships,
and contests like Legends of Surfing,
which routinely take place in Cocoa Beach.
For surfers traveling to Cocoa Beach,
hotels like the Beach Place Guest Houses,
cater to surfers with board storage, gear rentals,
and easy beach access.
And if you want surfing tips,
strike up a conversation with local surfers
in the water or around town to get insider tips.
You can also drive Iconic Route A1A,
a surf themed route along the waves
to see more epic surf spots.
I'm here in Cocoa Beach during a special event.
It's Thunder on Cocoa Beach.
This is when you can see mega boats race
during a multi-day series of events,
including seeing these boats up close in downtown Cocoa Beach.
Evelyn and I are checking out the boats,
which will look a little bit like spaceships to me at sunset,
making a trip to Coconuts on the Beach,
where you can listen to live music beachside.
It's the perfect place to end our day.
We walk out onto the big wide beaches
and the colors at sunset are stunning.
If you're in the Cocoa Beach area
and you need something on your travels,
or let's face it,
you just want to get into the laid-back beach style here.
Head to Ron Jon Surf Shop, the world's largest surf shop.
But not to be overshadowed by its neighbor,
Cocoa Beach Surf Company,
a women-run surf complex,
complete with a restaurant, hotel,
almost 30,000 feet of retail outlet space,
and a rental place for bikes,
ebikes, kayaks, surf boards,
and even a Starbucks inside.
I head upstairs at Cocoa Beach Surf Company
passing surf boards, bathing suits,
t-shirt, sunscreen,
and all things floor to beach vacation
to meet the ladies who run this surf complex.
I filmed in the UK years ago
and is able to film an interview
with the real-life Calendar Girls.
The women who were portrayed
in the early 2000s hit British comedy movie.
I normally interview people one-on-one
and travel with two wireless mics.
This makes it difficult to properly capture the audio
if you're interviewing lots of people at once.
These ladies today were giving me Calendar Girl vibes
as I saw them seated across at a large table
in the upstairs locker room.
Sandy McBride, General Manager,
Janet Antoon, a retail buyer,
and Megan Campbell and Amy Jones,
both assistant general managers,
were all there to share their insights
and I didn't want to leave anyone out.
And last name is Campbell, like the soup.
Okay, I love it.
At Janet's, a local,
Megan's a local, Amy's a local.
We all live beach, I'm gonna have her both live beach side.
So she's right down the road, I'm right down the road.
They're sharing some lesser-known insights into the area
from Surf Style to famous names.
Because we are some to be the small wave capital of the world.
Kelly Slater is from here.
Oh really?
And this is us.
It's a big town just down the road for him.
And this is his hometown where his family resides.
Yeah, I don't know if we see him often.
Yeah, whoo.
I'd like a Kelly Slater sighting,
but first I may need to get dressed for the part.
Is there a Surf Style here in Cocoa Beach?
You know, a Christmas wearing flip-flops and shorts and a tank jaw.
Mine's awesome.
Because it's 70 degrees and we're happy.
It's beautiful.
It gets below 70, we get out of code.
So the weather here, it's nice year round.
Great.
And Megan Campbell tells me she decided to live here
for the beach activities.
We've worn this huge around here to surfing
anytime between March and October,
or the best times to surf here,
long tide is where it's a little bit stronger.
Early morning is when it's a little cleaner,
and it's glassy and calm,
or that's one of my favorite things.
It's very calm around here.
Like everything's really laid back.
That's great.
Layed back and great for cycling around.
You can rent regular bikes or e-bikes
and tool around town.
We have bike lines all over Cocoa Beach.
Yeah.
Janet Antoon seeks out the products
you find at Coppobiche Surf Company.
And I ask her, what's unique
that I may find while shopping here?
Year round, we carry bathing suits.
And sandals which most stores,
once obvious tits, they're putting in coats
and things like that.
You can't find bathing suits in one store.
So we year round because of our weather.
It's great.
As a female shopper,
I can tell you that's a pain point.
I do like to try on a bathing suit before I buy it.
And it's so hard to find them in stores now.
Being that this is the space coast,
I noticed that Cocoa Beach Surf Company
has space-inspired t-shirts,
and you can even watch a rocket launch
from outside of their complex.
Our hotel guests will come out into our garage
on the fifth floor because it's open
and at night when they watch a rocket launch,
the sky lights up.
And we counted, were used to it now.
I'm supposed to see us.
Bugs that are visiting us for the first time,
get to see something like that,
and they feel the brown shape because it does.
I always tell people to talk to the locals on your travels,
to get the best tips and insights.
And I usually say, take a local tour
or ask at a coffee shop.
But I found this to be another great place
to garner local insights.
So you can come here to shop or grab a drink or something,
and then it's a two-fer,
because you can be shopping and then you can get advice
on what to do on your trip.
It's very true.
Exactly.
For, I'm getting distracted
because I'm seeing all the peril back there
and I'm kind of shopping in my head.
So Janet takes me out to shop and tour the store.
And there's a lot to take in here.
And we have bodyboards everywhere,
because everybody picks up a bodyboard
and goes to the beach.
Evelyn, my consulting producer,
has her eye on a bathing suit,
but I steer us first to the restaurant,
where a pizza oven is cooking up a fresh dish.
Evelyn and I chow down on a BLT pizza
and peach margaritas.
Delicious.
Well, I had to bring my shopping bags with me
back to the beach after my time
with Coco Beach Surf Company,
where I got space-inspired t-shirts,
a funky island-themed blouse,
and Evelyn got new bathing suits.
We were ready to hit the beach,
which brought us back to Cocoa Beach at sunset,
a great place to reflect on Cocoa Beach,
with its authentic locals who truly love
and take pride in the area.
And where exploration takes center stage,
whether you're walking the downtown,
or dreaming of outer space.
Thanks for listening to these Travels
with Darley Podcasts on Cocoa Beach.
Tune into my next podcast,
with all the tips you need on getting to Cocoa Beach,
and pre- and post-cruise options,
including more great food finds,
and check out the previous podcast,
focused on more family-friendly Cocoa Beach travel tips.
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