The Venice of America — Las Olas Boulevard, waterway dining, and a year-round beach lifestyle
Fort Lauderdale earns its Venice comparison with 300 miles of inland waterways winding past luxury yachts and waterfront restaurants. Las Olas Boulevard is the cosmopolitan spine — boutiques, galleries, and restaurants backed by a world-class strip of Atlantic beach. The city is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world and a winter escape that draws both US snowbirds and international visitors to its year-round warm weather.
Named after Major William Lauderdale, who built a fort here during the Second Seminole War in 1838, Fort Lauderdale remained a small trading post until Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway reached it in 1896. The city's canal system was dredged starting in the 1920s to drain the Everglades for development — creating the waterway grid that became its defining feature. Spring Break in the 1950s–80s made Fort Lauderdale synonymous with youthful excess; the city later reinvented itself for higher-end tourism and has since become the superyacht capital of the world.