As recently as the late 1980s, the sand in Fort Lauderdale was sticky with beer and the streets ran wild with pimpled youths storming about in celebration of that American university rite of passage, Spring Break. Locals would look on in horror as their city was overtaken by yahoos, and they finally decided to do something about it. They renovated, groomed and trimmed the whole place, turning Fort Lauderdale into more of an international yachting center than an intercollegiate multi-kegger.

That's not to say that it's not a party town - it decidedly is. These days, you can carouse at dozens of clubs, pubs and beach nightspots, as long as you dress respectably (meaning in clothes of some sort) and behave yourself. And for those visitors who insist on getting out in the daylight, Fort Lauderdale has a surprising number of cultural and historical sites...for a beach town.