8 Best Sights in Orlando, Florida

Given to the City of Winter Park by the Genius family (benefactors of the Morse Museum), this 11-acre green space has manicured lawns, specimen plantings, a beautiful rose garden available for private functions, a fountain, and a gazebo. If you take a seat and listen as the Amtrak passenger train rolls by, it's not hard to imagine how Winter Park looked and sounded in the late 19th century. The SunRail commuter and Amtrak trains stop right within the park, giving great car-free access, particularly during the packed art festivals, to and from Downtown Orlando, Kissimmee, and Sanford. The Winter Park Farmers' Market draws people to the southwest corner on Saturday between 8 am and 1 pm. If you don't want to browse in the shops across the street, a walk beneath the park's moss-covered trees is a delightful alternative. There's free Wi-Fi within the park, as well.

On the Rollins College campus, this museum houses Florida's oldest art collection (its first paintings acquired in 1896)—one with more than 5,000 pieces, from Italian Renaissance works to 19th- and 20th-century American and European paintings. Special exhibitions feature everything from Native American artifacts to Soviet propaganda posters. Outside the museum, a small but charming garden overlooks Lake Virginia. Some of the museum's collection graces the walls of the nearby, Rollins-owned, Alfond Inn. The museum is free to visit; free guided tours are offered on weekends at 1 pm. A new downtown Winter Park home for the renamed Rollins Museum of Art will break ground in 2023.

Housed in one of Downtown's oldest buildings, this charming, small gallery features mostly local and regional artists.

Almost crowded out by the glitz of new shops, restaurants, and art galleries is the original, once-thriving area of Hannibal Square, one of the oldest African-American communities in the country and home to Pullman porter families to this day. The Heritage Center has a permanent collection of photographs and oral histories of the significant West Winter Park area. It's a touching and important memorial to a neighborhood that influenced American history.

Enormous cypress trees shade this 5-acre public park on the shores of Lake Maitland. It's hidden within an upscale neighborhood and comes alive with heady color from January through March. The thousands of blooming azaleas (hence the name) make a perfect backdrop for romantic strolls, and sunset weddings are common at the park's Exedra monument overlooking the lake.

Old Town is the heart of tourist Kissimmee, with carnival-type attractions and a 1950s theme. Highlights include magic shows in the Great Magic Hall, a haunted funeral parlor attraction, video game and shooting arcades, a laser-tag hall, go-karts and bumper cars, and regularly scheduled classic car shows. Shopping has become the realm of "As Seen on TV" stores and flea market staples, and dining takes the form of generic food courts and sports bars.

Founded by international photographer Patrick Kahn, SNAP! is the leading repository of contemporary images in Orlando. The gallery in Colonialtown has shown cutting-edge photos from artists such as Shawn Theodore, Roger Ballen, and musician Moby, along with world premiere exhibitions, emerging graffiti artists, and even jewelry makers.

This museum, just a few minutes west of Maitland, is in Eatonville, the first African-American town to be incorporated after the Civil War. It showcases works by artists of African descent during five six-week-long exhibitions each year, with one reserved for up-and-comers. The museum is named after former resident Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), a writer, folklorist, and anthropologist best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. This is the home of Zora Fest, a street festival and cultural arts and music event celebrating Hurston's life, which is held each year in late January.