Last Updated: August 1, 2026
Ormond Beach sits on Florida’s Atlantic coast just north of Daytona Beach. We have stayed a little further north at Flagler Beach before and liked the stretch, so we came back to it. This time the weather had other ideas. A bitter, windy, wet storm sat on us for most of the week and we got perhaps two days of sunshine out of seven. We lost the daily beach walks we had been looking forward to — but we were given something else instead: a dramatic, grey, heaving Atlantic in full winter temper, twenty feet from where we were sitting. We never did get a photograph that did it justice. The day below was the nicest one we had.
Coral Sands RV, Ormond Beach
Coral Sands is an unusual setup — a small inn, cottages and RV resort sharing one oceanfront property, so the RV sites get a position that almost no campground on this coast can offer.
Our site backed straight onto a spectacular ocean view. Full hookups, and WiFi fast enough to stream. The one hiccup was the 50-amp pedestal: one of the two power legs had partially pulled out of its connection and had to be reattached by an electrician, which cost us a couple of hours before we had power. Worth saying plainly, because a partially disconnected leg on a 50-amp service is not a trivial fault — it can leave one side of the trailer low and cook an air conditioner or a converter. If a pedestal looks damaged or your monitor shows an odd voltage split, do not just plug in and hope. From Indian Mound Fish Camp it was only an hour up the coast.
The frustration of the stay was that dogs were not allowed on Ormond Beach at all. With the weather as bad as it was this mattered less than it might have, but there was no fenced dog park at the RV resort and no good walking options on foot, so every walk meant driving somewhere. We found places around town easily enough, but it was a nuisance.
This has since changed, and it is the single biggest update to this post. Volusia County ran a pilot dog beach at Ormond Beach and made it permanent on April 1, 2025. Dogs are now welcome on the stretch from Rockefeller Drive to Milsap Road, sunrise to sunset, on a leash no longer than six feet, with owners cleaning up after them. There are three other dog-friendly beach areas in the county as well: Lighthouse Point Park at Ponce Inlet, Smyrna Dunes Park at New Smyrna Beach, and a newer stretch in Daytona Beach between the Williams Avenue and Seabreeze Boulevard approaches. If you are coming with a dog, this makes Ormond Beach a completely different proposition than it was for us.
Our neighbors, meanwhile, travelled with four guinea pigs, which they put out in a pen whenever the weather allowed. Jake the dog was transfixed. Their owners were confident that a proper introduction would settle him, and insisted he be allowed to sniff a couple of them. He duly sniffed. He then licked one. At no point did his fascination decrease — if anything the data trended the wrong way — and prudence eventually dictated a policy of separation. Everyone survived, guinea pigs included.
A Great Blue Heron, standing a respectful few feet behind a surf fisherman and waiting with enormous patience for something to happen. Nothing did. Both parties went home empty.
Ruddy Turnstones were among the shorebirds we saw every day, and they are worth watching for a few minutes rather than a few seconds. The name is literal: that short, slightly upturned, wedge-shaped bill is a lever, and they work along the tideline flipping over shells, weed and small stones to get at whatever is sheltering underneath. Almost no other shorebird feeds that way, which is why turnstones can share a beach with a dozen other species and not compete with any of them.
Sanderlings scurried everywhere, sometimes almost underfoot. These are the small pale birds everyone has watched without knowing the name — the ones that chase the wave down the beach, jab at the sand, then sprint back up ahead of the next one, over and over, all day. They are feeding on tiny invertebrates in the few seconds of saturated sand each wave leaves behind. Some of the birds on that beach had come down from the high Arctic to be there.
The Willets worked right in the fringe of the surf and gave us the best frames of the week — that last one, standing calmly while the foam boils up around its legs, is a favorite. Willets look plain and grey-brown at rest and then open their wings to reveal a bold black-and-white stripe that seems to belong to a different bird entirely. If you are photographing them, the reward is in waiting for the flush.
Despite everything, we got a few good sunrises and sunsets out of the week. One advantage of an east-facing Atlantic beach is that the sunrise arrives over the water, and a stormy week actually gives you more interesting cloud to work with than a clear one — you just have to be willing to be outside at six in the morning in the cold to collect it.
Central Park, Ormond Beach
Central Park is four connected city parks built around four lakes, with paved walking trails looping three of them at roughly a mile each and several observation decks for birdwatching. It is an unglamorous municipal park and it saved our week — flat, easy, well-drained after rain, and best of all dog friendly, so Jake finally got a proper walk. We found several pond slider turtles hauled out along the banks, including one that had climbed some way up a fallen branch to get a better angle on the sun. Turtles do this deliberately: they are ectotherms and cannot generate their own heat, so on a cold Florida morning basking is not leisure, it is metabolism.
Ormond Scenic Loop and Trail
The Ormond Scenic Loop and Trail is a beautiful drive, and the live oak canopy closing over the road is the reason to do it. This is what “old Florida” looked like before the coast was built out. The route was designated a Florida Scenic Highway in 2007 and runs as a loop over five legs — A1A along the ocean, John Anderson Drive down the peninsula, Old Dixie Highway and North Beach Street on the mainland, Highbridge and Walter Boardman Roads across the north, and Granada Boulevard closing the south — crossing the Intracoastal and passing Tomoka State Park, Bulow Creek State Park, North Peninsula State Park and the Tomoka Marsh Aquatic Preserve. On a bad-weather week it is the perfect thing to do, because most of it works from the truck.
Part of the loop runs alongside marsh, and the birding there was good even in poor light. The butterfly is a Great Southern White, the large white that patrols this coastline in numbers — they are strongly associated with salt marsh and coastal dune, and in some years they move along the shore in loose migrations.
That hard-packed sand in the first frame is worth a word, because it is the reason this town exists in the form it does. Ormond Beach is the Birthplace of Speed. From 1903, the flat, firm, wide beach here was the fastest surface in America, and manufacturers came from France, Germany and England to race on it. Henry Flagler, who owned the Ormond Hotel, built the Ormond Garage in 1904 to house their machines. On January 26, 1906, Fred Marriott drove the steam-powered Stanley Rocket to 127.659 mph on this sand — a record that stood for four years. Racing moved to Indianapolis in 1911, but the beach habit stayed, and in time Bill France and his friends raced a few miles south at Daytona and founded NASCAR out of it.
Which makes a nice piece of symmetry: the stretch of beach where dogs are now finally welcome runs from Rockefeller Drive — named for John D. Rockefeller, who wintered here at The Casements — along the same sand that once held the land speed record of the world. Beside it, the yellow flower is a beach sunflower, sometimes called cucumberleaf sunflower, a tough native dune plant that blooms nearly year round and helps hold the dune together.
Ormond Beach is a genuinely likeable place. The size is about right — big enough for real stores and a decent range of restaurants, small enough to still feel like a beach town rather than a resort strip. We would come back, ideally in a week with less weather in it.
Visiting Ormond Beach: Where to Stay and What to Know
Coral Sands Inn & RV Resort — 1009 Ocean Shore Boulevard, Ormond Beach, Florida 32176. An oceanfront property combining an inn, seaside cottages and a small RV resort, with full-hookup sites backing onto the beach, a pool, and direct access to a traffic-free stretch of sand. Book through coralsandsinn.com. Sites here are limited and the oceanfront ones are the reason to come — reserve well ahead for winter.
Dogs on the beach. Since April 1, 2025 dogs are permanently welcome at Ormond Beach between Rockefeller Drive and Milsap Road, sunrise to sunset, leashed on a lead no longer than six feet, with owners required to clean up and to keep dogs out of posted wildlife areas. Volusia County’s other dog-friendly beach areas are Lighthouse Point Park at Ponce Inlet, Smyrna Dunes Park at New Smyrna Beach, and the Daytona Beach stretch between the Williams Avenue and Seabreeze Boulevard approaches. Details and current rules from Volusia County Beach Safety, 386-239-7873.
Central Park, Ormond Beach — four linked city parks around four lakes, with paved loop trails of roughly a mile around three of them, observation decks for birding, and free parking. Dogs are welcome on leash. Open daylight hours, no admission fee.
Ormond Scenic Loop and Trail — a designated Florida Scenic Highway since 2007, free to drive, following A1A, John Anderson Drive, Old Dixie Highway, North Beach Street, Highbridge Road, Walter Boardman Road and Granada Boulevard. Allow two to three hours with stops. Route maps and current conditions at ormondscenicloopandtrail.com. The Casements, John D. Rockefeller’s winter home, and the Birthplace of Speed monument and park are both in town and free to visit — see the City of Ormond Beach for hours.
Practical Tips for Ormond Beach
Inspect the power pedestal before you plug in. Ours had a partially pulled 50-amp leg that needed an electrician. Look at the receptacle, and use a surge protector or an EMS that reads voltage on both legs — a loose leg can damage air conditioners and converters before you notice anything is wrong.
Bring the dog now, but check the boundaries. The dog-friendly stretch runs Rockefeller Drive to Milsap Road only — the rest of Ormond Beach is still off limits, and it is enforced. Sunrise to sunset, six-foot leash maximum.
Have a bad-weather plan. January on this coast can hand you a week of cold rain and wind. Central Park’s paved loops drain well and stay walkable, and the Scenic Loop works entirely from the vehicle. Both saved our stay.
Get up for sunrise. Ormond faces east, so the sun comes up over the water. Storm weeks give you far more dramatic cloud than clear ones — the trade is being out on the sand in the cold and dark to catch it.
Shoot shorebirds low and stay put. The Willets, Sanderlings and Ruddy Turnstones on this beach tolerate a stationary person far better than an approaching one. Sit down on the wet sand, get the lens near their eye level, and let them work their way toward you. Every good frame in this post came that way.
Book oceanfront well ahead. There are very few genuinely oceanfront RV sites anywhere on this stretch of coast, and Coral Sands has a handful. Winter is the season everybody wants them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are dogs allowed on Ormond Beach? Yes, now. Dogs were banned from Ormond Beach when we visited in early 2022, but Volusia County made a dog-friendly stretch permanent on April 1, 2025. Dogs are allowed from Rockefeller Drive to Milsap Road, sunrise to sunset, on a leash no longer than six feet, with owners cleaning up after them. The rest of Ormond Beach remains closed to dogs.
Where can you camp oceanfront in Ormond Beach? Coral Sands Inn & RV Resort at 1009 Ocean Shore Boulevard has full-hookup RV sites backing directly onto the sand, alongside an inn and seaside cottages. Sites are limited and oceanfront positions on this coast are rare, so reserve early for winter.
Why is Ormond Beach called the Birthplace of Speed? Because the hard-packed sand here was America’s first great racing surface. From 1903 manufacturers came from across Europe and the United States to run speed trials on the beach; Henry Flagler built the Ormond Garage in 1904 to house their cars; and on January 26, 1906 Fred Marriott set a world land speed record of 127.659 mph in the steam-powered Stanley Rocket, which stood for four years. Racing moved to Indianapolis in 1911, but beach racing continued nearby and eventually gave rise to NASCAR at Daytona.
Is the Ormond Scenic Loop worth driving? Yes, and especially in bad weather, since most of it is enjoyed from the vehicle. It has been a designated Florida Scenic Highway since 2007, is free, and takes two to three hours with stops. The live oak canopy along John Anderson Drive and Old Dixie Highway is the highlight, and the route passes Tomoka, Bulow Creek and North Peninsula State Parks.
What is there to do in Ormond Beach in bad weather? Drive the Ormond Scenic Loop, walk the paved lake trails at Central Park, visit The Casements — Rockefeller’s winter home — and the Birthplace of Speed park, or head into Daytona Beach a few minutes south. The beach itself is still worth walking in a storm if you are dressed for it; a winter Atlantic in full temper is a sight in its own right.
What shorebirds can you see at Ormond Beach in winter? We saw Ruddy Turnstones, Sanderlings, Willets and Great Blue Heron daily along the surf line, plus egrets in the marshes along the Scenic Loop. Winter is excellent for shorebirds on this coast — many of these birds breed in the Arctic and come south to spend the season on Florida beaches.
Is Ormond Beach better than Daytona Beach? They suit different tastes. Ormond is quieter and more residential, with a genuine small beach-town feel while still having full-size stores and a good range of restaurants. Daytona, a few minutes south, is larger, louder and more commercial. We preferred Ormond.
From Ormond Beach we turned inland again, back across central Florida to Grand Oaks Resort at Lady Lake — and, we hoped, out from under the weather.
