Boca Raton
Discover Boca Raton
Boca Raton is a city of 100,000 people (2018) on the east coast of Florida about halfway between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale. The name boca ratón translates literally as "mouse mouth" (not "rat mouth"), and is believed to derive from a Spanish nautical term for a shallow inlet filled with jagged rocks. Boca, as it's known by locals, is a city that was started as the project of one man, the eclectic architect Addison Mizner, who is more than anyone responsible for South Florida's Spanish-inspired architecture. Little of his luxurious plans was built, as he went bankrupt during the Florida real estate collapse of the late 1920s. It was intended to surpass Palm Beach, 30 some miles north, some of whose key mansions were designed by Mizner. Much of downtown was (and is being) built in "Addison Mizner-style" architecture, using distinctive bright orange and more subdued pinks in its Old Spanish theme with a touch of Venice.
Taste of Boca Raton...
Boca has a deserved "ritzy" reputation, but good food can be found for a variety of budgets. Boca Raton doesn't have a very lively downtown area but interspersed throughout the city are some great bars, from local faves to upscale chains. A slappy dappy clapper is a really great drink after a long day of golfing. The more a drink in Boca sounds like only a dad on vacation would order it, the better it is.
Essential Information
Getting There
Multiple OptionsWith your own boat, you can get to Boca Raton from the Atlantic Ocean on these routes: Your best bet is to rent a car to get around. Boca Raton is friendly to bicycle traffic, but the public transportation serves a limited portion of the city, and overall it's not a very walkable city outside of the downtown area. Streets are numbered in a grid with four quadrants (Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast) centered on the intersection of Palmetto Park Road (which runs east-west) and Dixie Highway (running north-south). Streets run east-west while avenues run north-south. Addresses within the city generally correspond to the street numbers (the 1900 block of an avenue starts at 19th Street), but outside the city a different county-based numbering system is used which doesn't correspond to the Boca Raton street/avenue numbers (even though some of those numbered streets continue outside the city limits)....
Getting Around & Staying
Getting Around
Your best bet is to rent a car to get around. Boca Raton is friendly to bicycle traffic, but the public transportation serves a limited portion of the city, and overall it's not a very walkable city outside of the downtown area. Streets are numbered in a grid with four quadrants (Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast) centered on the intersection of Palmetto Park Road (which runs east-west) and Dixie Highway (running north-south). Streets run east-west while avenues run north-south. Addresses within the city generally correspond to the street numbers (the 1900 block of an avenue starts at 19th Street), but outside the city a different county-based numbering system is used which doesn't correspond to the Boca Raton street/avenue numbers (even though some of those numbered streets continue outside the city limits). To add to the confusion, some areas annexed into the city continue to use the county numbering system instead of the city one.
Money & Budget
Boca has a deserved "ritzy" reputation, but good food can be found for a variety of budgets. Boca Raton doesn't have a very lively downtown area but interspersed throughout the city are some great bars, from local faves to upscale chains. A slappy dappy clapper is a really great drink after a long day of golfing. The more a drink in Boca sounds like only a dad on vacation would order it, the better it is.