Things to do in Hollywood, Florida (and Dania Beach)

Hollywood, Florida is not Hollywood, California

The name confuses first-time visitors every year, so it’s worth saying plainly: this Hollywood is a coastal city in Broward County, Florida, with no connection to the film industry, the Walk of Fame or anything Californian. It sits on the Atlantic coast between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and its identity is entirely local — a beach town built around one long oceanfront promenade.

That promenade, the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk, is the reason anyone stops here. It’s a genuinely pleasant stretch of paved path facing the sand, used by joggers, cyclists and families on rented surreys, with a run of small cafes, ice-cream counters and casual seafood spots along its inland side. It’s the kind of place that rewards an hour or two, not a full day of sightseeing.

This page is deliberately short, because Hollywood itself is a short stop. With only a handful of bookable tours here — far fewer than in Miami, Miami Beach or Fort Lauderdale — treating it as a destination in its own right would be misleading. The honest framing is: Hollywood and neighbouring Dania Beach make a good half-day break in the drive between Miami and Fort Lauderdale-Palm Beach, not a trip worth planning around on its own.

If you want the bigger regional picture — beach, canals, boat-taxis, cruise port, airport — that belongs to Fort Lauderdale, covered in full on Things to do in Fort Lauderdale. If villas, Worth Avenue and the Flagler Museum are more your speed, that’s Palm Beach territory. Hollywood’s job on this site is narrower: the walk, the beach, a few casual activities, and an honest sense of how much time to give it.

The Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

The Broadwalk runs for roughly 2.5 miles (4 km) along Hollywood Beach, a wide, paved, palm-lined path separated from the sand by a low seawall. It’s flat, shaded in patches, and easy walking or cycling for any fitness level — no hills, no crowds to fight the way you might at South Beach on a Saturday.

Along the Broadwalk you’ll find:

• Bike, surrey and beach-cruiser rental stands, priced by the hour
• Casual restaurants and food trucks facing the water, mostly seafood, Latin American and simple American fare
• A public beach that’s free to access, with lifeguard stands in season
• A handful of small hotels and short-term rentals rather than the high-rise towers of Miami Beach

There’s no equivalent here to the Art Deco Historic District or a headline museum — the Broadwalk itself is the attraction, and it’s honestly described as a walk, not a sight. A food tour along the Broadwalk is one of the few organised ways to sample the area properly in a couple of hours, tasting a handful of local spots rather than guessing which restaurant is worth the visit:

a guided food tour along the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

For a more offbeat stop a short walk or drive inland, the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, Florida sits near the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino — useful if you want an air-conditioned break with familiar American food between beach time, though it’s a chain restaurant, not a local landmark, and shouldn’t be oversold as one.

Getting around the Broadwalk without a car

Because the Broadwalk is flat and traffic-free, renting wheels for an hour or two is often more useful than a guided tour. A self-drive rental lets you set your own pace along the full length of the promenade and into quieter side streets:

a self-drive Polaris Slingshot rental based at Hollywood Beach

This is a novelty activity — a three-wheeled, open-air vehicle — rather than practical transport, and it’s priced and marketed as such. It won’t replace a rental car for reaching the Everglades or the Keys; treat it as an hour of fun on the local roads around the Broadwalk, not transportation for the trip.

Dania Beach: the quieter neighbour

Immediately south of Hollywood sits Dania Beach, a smaller and noticeably quieter city. Where Hollywood’s Broadwalk draws a steady flow of walkers and cyclists, Dania Beach’s coastline is calmer, with less built-up shoreline and fewer visitors overall.

The main landmark is the Dania Pier, a fishing pier extending into the Atlantic that’s also a reasonable put-in point for paddleboarding, with a shallow reef close enough to shore for casual snorkeling on a calm day:

a paddleboarding and reef-snorkeling outing from Dania Pier

Conditions depend entirely on the weather and swell that day — this is a casual, weather-dependent outing, not a guaranteed reef-diving experience the way Key Largo’s John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is. Anyone wanting a serious snorkeling day should look further south to the Keys rather than expect it here.

A short drive inland from the pier, Dania Pointe is a large open-air shopping and dining complex that also houses a branch of a national escape-room franchise — a straightforward, air-conditioned option if an afternoon storm rolls in and the beach plan falls through. It’s a standard indoor escape-room franchise, worth knowing about if the weather turns, not a reason on its own to visit Dania Beach.

Why this is a stop, not a destination

Between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Dania Beach occupy a specific role: a pleasant pause, not a planning anchor. A few honest reasons why:

• Few bookable activities. This page lists the full set of tours available here — around a dozen and a half across the whole area, versus dozens in Fort Lauderdale or hundreds in Miami and Miami Beach. That’s not a gap in this guide; it reflects what actually exists to book.
• No headline sight. There’s no Art Deco Historic District, no Flagler Museum, no aquarium-scale attraction. The Broadwalk is genuinely nice for a walk, but it doesn’t fill a full day the way Fort Lauderdale’s beach and canal network can.
• Short driving distance to bigger draws. Fort Lauderdale is about 8 miles (13 km) north, Miami about 20 miles (32 km) south — both under an hour by car depending on traffic, and Fort Lauderdale is also reachable by Brightline train from Miami with a short local transfer.

The practical advice: if you’re driving between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, or Miami and Palm Beach, build in an hour or two here for lunch and a walk on the Broadwalk. Don’t book a hotel night around Hollywood expecting a full itinerary of its own — that’s what Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach are for.

Stop	What it’s good for	Time to allow
Hollywood Beach Broadwalk	Walk, casual meal, bike or surrey rental	1–2 hours
Dania Pier	Paddleboarding, casual snorkeling, fishing	1–2 hours
Dania Pointe	Shopping, indoor escape room, rainy-day option	1–2 hours
Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood	Casual meal near the casino resort	1 hour

Getting there and getting around

By car, Hollywood is reached from Miami or Fort Lauderdale via I-95 or US-1, both of which run right through the area. Parking near the Broadwalk is mostly metered street parking and municipal lots, tightest on weekends and in the winter high season; arrive earlier in the day if you’re driving yourself. See renting a car and dealing with tolls around Miami for how the region’s cashless toll roads work if you’re driving up from Miami.

There’s no dedicated rail stop directly at the Broadwalk; the nearest useful public transport link is the Brightline station in Fort Lauderdale, from which Hollywood is a short taxi or rideshare away — covered in Brightline from Miami to Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach. For most visitors staying in Miami or Miami Beach, a rideshare or a rental car is the simpler option for a half-day stop here.

If you’re weighing where to actually base yourself for a few nights in this part of Florida rather than just passing through, Miami Beach vs. Fort Lauderdale and the Miami-and-Fort-Lauderdale five-day itinerary both address that question directly — Hollywood fits into either as a stop along the way, not as the base itself.

Practical tips for a stop in Hollywood and Dania Beach

A few practical points that apply here as much as anywhere else in South Florida. Prices at restaurants, rental stands and tour operators are almost always shown before tax, and Florida sales tax adds roughly 7% at the register in this part of the state — a small gap worth expecting rather than being surprised by at checkout. Tipping follows the same US norm as Miami and Fort Lauderdale: waitstaff generally expect 18 to 20% at a sit-down meal, and it’s worth carrying a card or some cash for smaller stands along the Broadwalk that don’t always take tips smoothly through a card machine.

Driving here means driving on the right, same as the rest of the mainland, and the legal drinking age is 21, checked at bars and at some of the more upscale restaurants near the Broadwalk. The area sits in the Eastern time zone, so it runs on the same clock as Miami and Fort Lauderdale — useful to know if you’re coordinating a pickup or a tour time booked from a hotel further south. Tap water is safe to drink throughout Hollywood and Dania Beach, so there’s no need to budget for bottled water on a short stop here the way you might on an international leg of a trip.

Because this is a short, informal stop rather than an overnight base, it’s worth timing a visit around meals rather than trying to build a full schedule of activities. A late breakfast or lunch on the Broadwalk, a walk or bike ride afterward, and a paddle or swim at Dania Pier if conditions allow cover the realistic range of what a half-day here offers — anything beyond that starts to overlap with what Fort Lauderdale already does better, at greater scale.

Weather and timing

The same seasonal pattern applies here as across South Florida: a hot, humid wet season roughly from May to October with short, sharp afternoon storms, and a drier, sunnier season roughly from November to April that draws the highest visitor numbers and prices. The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30, peaking August to October — worth factoring into travel insurance and flexible bookings if you’re planning a beach-focused stop here in that window; see the Miami hurricane season guide for what that actually means for a trip.

Because the Broadwalk and Dania Pier are both outdoor, weather-dependent stops, a clear morning is worth more here than a full day with rain in the forecast. If you’re short on time and the forecast is against you, this is one of the easier stops on a South Florida itinerary to skip or shorten in favour of Fort Lauderdale or Miami’s indoor attractions.

What this page deliberately leaves out

To keep this guide honest, a few things are intentionally not covered here because they belong elsewhere:

• Fort Lauderdale’s beach, canals, water-taxis, Port Everglades cruise terminal and airport — all covered in Things to do in Fort Lauderdale
• Palm Beach’s villas, Worth Avenue shopping and the Flagler Museum — covered under Palm Beach
• Any suggestion of a historic district, major museum or landmark attraction in Hollywood itself, because none exists here comparable to Miami Beach’s Art Deco Historic District or Miami’s Vizcaya Museum and Gardens

Keeping Hollywood’s page focused on the Broadwalk, Dania Beach and the small set of tours actually bookable here is the honest version of this stop — a good pause between two bigger destinations, not a headline in itself.

Frequently asked questions about visiting Hollywood, Florida

Is Hollywood, Florida the same as Hollywood, California?

No. Hollywood, Florida is a coastal city in Broward County, between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. It has no connection to the film industry or to Hollywood, California, beyond sharing a name.

What is the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk?

The Broadwalk is a paved oceanfront promenade running along Hollywood Beach, used for walking, cycling and rental bikes or surreys, with cafes, ice-cream stands and casual restaurants facing the sand.

Is Hollywood, Florida worth a special trip from Miami?

Not as a standalone destination. It has a short, pleasant beachfront and a few bookable activities, but the bigger attractions of the region — Fort Lauderdale’s beach and canals, Palm Beach’s mansions — sit further north and justify a longer visit on their own.

What is Dania Beach known for?

Dania Beach is the small city just south of Hollywood, known for a quieter stretch of coastline, the Dania Pier for fishing and paddling, and casual attractions such as an escape room at Dania Pointe.

How far is Hollywood, Florida from Miami and from Fort Lauderdale?

Hollywood sits roughly 20 miles (32 km) north of Downtown Miami and about 8 miles (13 km) south of Downtown Fort Lauderdale, both under an hour’s drive depending on traffic on I-95 or US-1.

Can I combine Hollywood with a Fort Lauderdale day trip?

Yes — Hollywood and Dania Beach work well as a stop on the way to or from Fort Lauderdale rather than a separate outing, since the drive between them is short and the two areas share the same stretch of coast.

Is there a historic district or major museum in Hollywood, Florida?

No. Unlike Palm Beach’s Flagler Museum or Miami Beach’s Art Deco Historic District, Hollywood does not have a headline museum or historic quarter; its appeal is the Broadwalk and beach, not indoor sightseeing.