Sights—A launch at Kennedy Space Center or a bus tour of its rockets at the Vehicle Assembly Building; wildlife habitats at the Merritt Island refuge; watersports along Playalinda.

Museums—The American Police Hall of Fame and Museum; Brevard County Museum of History and Natural Sciences; memorabilia from space exploration at the Astronauts Hall of Fame.

Memorable Meals—Great seafood at Bernard's Surf; eating on the outdoor picnic tables at Dixie Crossroads; German food and atmosphere at Heidelberg's.

Late Night—Guinness and toe-tapping Irish music at Meg O'Malleys; theme nights at Coconuts on the Beach; a casino cruise.

Walks—Hiking through the Enchanted Forest Nature Sanctuary; strolling through the historic streets of Cocoa.

Especially For Kids—Kayaking through Brevard Zoo; the interactive exhibits at Kennedy Space Center; surfing the small waves off Cocoa Beach; Andretti Thrill Park; surf lessons at Ron Jon.

Cape Canaveral is a sprawling section of central Florida and, thanks to the enormous amount of land required by NASA as well as huge tracts protected as a wildlife refuge, much of it remains undeveloped. That said, areas open to commercial and residential development are highly prized because of their scarcity and their proximity to the beach. On the mainland, Titusville and Cocoa are bedroom communities for many NASA employees and their families. The Intracoastal Waterway separates the mainland from the barrier islands. Cape Canaveral's neighboring oceanfront cities include Cocoa Beach, Rockledge and Melbourne. Home to thousands of year-round residents, this area—especially Cocoa Beach and nearby Port Canaveral—is a favorite of vacationers for its laid-back atmosphere.

Sparsely inhabited sandy areas were about all the first Spanish explorers noticed when they arrived in the Cape Canaveral area in the 1500s. The Calusa living along the coast soon disappeared, decimated by conquest and diseases brought by Europeans. The Creek tribes slowly moved into the area from northern Florida. (They became known as the Seminoles, probably from the Creek words ishti semoli, meaning outlanders.) The Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, but Britain gave it back to Spain in 1783 in hopes of keeping it out of the hands of the U.S. Meanwhile, Native Americans struggled with the European settlers until a war in 1821 gave U.S. President Andrew Jackson the excuse he needed to relocate the tribes to areas west of the Mississippi.

Because of the area's extensive wetlands (and clouds of mosquitoes), growth was slower around Cape Canaveral than elsewhere in Florida. But in the 1950s, when the remote area was selected as the nucleus of the U.S. space program under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, large aerospace contractors and hundreds of scientists and technicians began moving in.

The 1971 opening of nearby Orlando's Walt Disney World (only 35 mi/55 km away) sparked further interest in Port Canaveral and in Cape Canaveral's beaches.

If you're a teacher, you can take back souvenirs for the class from NASA's Educators Resource Center at the Kennedy Space Center (phone 321-867-4090). Posters, photographs and teaching materials are available. And if you take blank videotapes, you can copy the entire library of space films.

The first Spanish explorers named the area Capo de Canaveral (cape of the cane bearers) after being greeted with a hail of cane arrows. The Spanish left quickly.

The space center actually has had two official names in its lifetime. It was first called the Launch Operations Center; then, in 1963, it was renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center upon the assassination of the U.S. president.

Shuttle launches attract thousands of space enthusiasts from around the state, country and world. When John Glenn returned to space in 1998, about 500,000 people lined up along Titusville's waterfront (one of the best locations to view a launch), Cocoa Beach and other viewing sites to see him off.

Although the U.S. space program spurred an economic and population boom on Florida's east-central coastline, humans had occupied the area long before the launch pads did. Burial sites discovered in the 1980s in Titusville date back to 6,000 BC. The area was home to people known as the Ais. It was later occupied by the Spanish and then the British.