Things to Do in Vero Beach, FL

Historic Dodgertown / Jackie Robinson Training Complex

In 1948, Dodgers co-owner and general manager Branch Rickey founded Dodgertown on a 220-acre former World War II naval air station the team leased from the City of Vero Beach, drawn there by local businessman and Eastern Air Lines director Bud Holman. The Brooklyn -- and later Los Angeles -- Dodgers trained there every spring for 61 consecutive years, from 1948 through the final game at Holman Stadium on March 17, 2008, against the Houston Astros. Holman Stadium itself was built in 1953 and remains architecturally distinctive among spring-training venues. The complex holds real civil rights significance beyond baseball: on March 31, 1948, Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella played in an exhibition game against the Dodgers' top farm club, the Montreal Royals, making Dodgertown one of the first integrated professional sports venues in the Jim Crow-era South -- recognized today on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail and with a Florida Heritage Landmark designation.

The complex, now owned and operated by Major League Baseball as the Jackie Robinson Training Complex, remains a genuinely active 80-acre multi-sport facility -- not a museum piece -- hosting more than 20 events a year including MLB's Andre Dawson Classic (an HBCU baseball event), the Breakthrough Series Invitational, and the Nike RBI World Series, alongside MLB Develops youth programming. Visitors interested in the site's history and current events should check the Jackie Robinson Training Complex's own event calendar (mlb.com/robinson-training-complex) for current programming, since this page does not state specific current visiting hours or tour availability.

Riverside Theatre

Riverside Theatre was built in 1973 on a 54-acre tract designated by the City of Vero Beach as a cultural park, funded by $1.5 million raised entirely from private donations. For its first decade it primarily hosted the Vero Beach Theatre Guild and touring productions; in 1980 the Riverside Children's Theatre added youth programming, and in 1983 the Friends of Riverside Theatre launched a Celebrity Series, opening with an appearance by Ray Charles. In 1984, Riverside became a professional producing theatre in its own right. The Anne Morton Theatre, a flexible 300-seat venue for Children's Theatre productions, opened in fall 1998, and in 2007 the theatre completed a $20 million renovation that increased seating, added a second stage/black box theatre, and expanded the lobby. That's a real, documented growth trajectory from a community volunteer theatre to a substantial regional professional venue over roughly 50 years.

McKee Botanical Garden

McKee Botanical Garden traces back to 1929, when Waldo Sexton and Arthur McKee purchased 80 acres of tropical hammock along the Indian River and engaged landscape architect William Lyman Phillips -- of the Olmsted Brothers firm, who also designed Fairchild Tropical Garden and Bok Tower Gardens -- to develop it. Originally known as McKee Jungle Gardens, it became one of Florida's top three visitor attractions at its peak, drawing roughly 100,000 visitors annually, before closing in 1976 as newer Florida theme parks drew tourists away. Most of the original 80 acres were subsequently developed, but 18 acres were preserved after a 1988 community effort -- including the creation of the Indian River Land Trust -- blocked a proposed shopping center on the site. Today, the 18-acre McKee Botanical Garden operates as a nonprofit subtropical botanical garden, a real, saved piece of Florida horticultural and landscape-architecture history rather than a generic garden attraction.

Ocean Drive: Beach, Shopping, and Historic Dining

Ocean Drive on the barrier island combines beach access with a walkable, boutique shopping and dining district -- covered in more detail on this site's dining page -- including the historic Ocean Grill (open since 1941) and the Driftwood Inn and Restaurant (opened 1937, built by Waldo Sexton). Central Beach, the neighborhood surrounding this corridor, is described by local real estate sources as the barrier island's most walkable area, with Ocean Grill, Heaton's Reef, and Waldo's at the Driftwood Resort functioning as its social anchors. This corridor is a genuine, sourced part of Vero Beach's identity, distinct from the more purely recreational beach access found elsewhere on the barrier island.

The Beaches Themselves

Vero Beach's Atlantic-facing beaches are actively managed through Indian River County's sector-based renourishment program -- see this site's beach erosion page for the full, sourced detail on named projects like the 2024-2025 Sector 4 restoration (135,000 cubic yards, $6.6 million) and the 2023 Sector 5 restoration (153,300 cubic yards, $6.5 million) following Hurricanes Ian and Nicole. This page does not state specific current beach access-point locations, parking situations, or lifeguard coverage, since those details change and were not independently confirmed as current for this build -- confirm current beach access and conditions directly with Indian River County Parks and Recreation or the City of Vero Beach before planning a beach day.

On the Water: Boating and Fishing

The Indian River Lagoon and nearby Sebastian and Fort Pierce Inlets give Vero Beach genuine, active on-the-water recreation beyond the beach itself -- inshore fishing for redfish, snook, trout, and tarpon, offshore charters targeting mahi-mahi, kingfish, and sailfish, and the Vero Beach Municipal Marina's more than 3,000 annual visiting boats along the Intracoastal Waterway. This site's dedicated boating and fishing pages cover named marinas, ramps, species, and honest detail on the lagoon's documented water-quality history for anyone planning water-based activities during a visit or after a move.

Indian River Citrus and Local Agricultural Heritage

Visitors interested in Vero Beach's agricultural history can explore the Indian River citrus legacy directly -- a district whose fame traces to 1807, when Captain Douglas Dummitt began cultivating citrus along the Indian River, and which became the world's largest grapefruit-producing region by the 1920s. The Indian River Citrus League, founded in 1931, still protects the name today. This page does not name a specific current citrus-themed attraction, tour, or farm stand, since that level of current detail was not independently confirmed for this build, but the citrus heritage itself is a real, documented part of what makes the broader Vero Beach area distinctive beyond its beach and baseball reputation.