Orlando Region - Central Florida Website Directory

Website
Categories

AC Dealers
Antiques
Attractions
Auto Dealers
Auto Repairs
Aviation
Banks
Bed and Breakfasts
Boat Dealers, Repairs
Boat Rentals
Boat Charters
Condos, Timeshares
Credit Unions
Flight Schools/Charters
Flooring
Furniture Stores
Garden Equip.,Supplies
General Contractors
Golf
Health Care
Home Builders
Hotels
Jewelry Stores
Landscape Contractors
Lawn Care
Limousines
Mortgage Companies
Motorcycles
Moving and Storage
Planned Communities
Pools and Spas
Real Estate
Remodelers
Roofers
RV's and RV Repairs
Scooters
Telecommunications
Tourist Attractions
Vacation Rentals
Website Designers
Website Services
Weddings

Featured Orlando
Websites

Tourism Websites

Orlando Hotels
Start you search for an Orlando hotel here. When you visit the Orlando area, we have links to Orlando hotels websites.
Go to Orlando Hotels.

Orlando Attractions
We have links to all the best Orlando area tourist attractions. From the largest attractions to the the smallest.
Go to Orlando Attractions

Cities and Towns

Altamonte Springs
Altoona
Apopka
Astatula
Astor
Azalea Park
Belle Isle
Bushnell
CASSELBERRY
Celebration
Center Hill
Christmas
Clermont
Coleman
Conway
EUSTIS
FAIRVIEW SHORES
FOREST CITY
Fruitland Park
GOLDENROD
Grand Island
Groveland
Howey-In-The-Hills
Kissimmee
LAKELAND
LADY LAKE
Lake Buena Vista
Lake Mary
Lake Panasoffkee
LEESBURG
LOCKHART
Longwood
Maitland
Mascotte
Minneola
Monteverde
Mount Dora
Mount Plymouth
Nobleton
Oakland
Ocala
Ocklawaha
O'COEE
Okahumpka
ORLANDO
Orlovista
Oviedo
Oxford
Paisley
Pine Castle
PINE HILLS
Sanford
Sorrento
Saint Cloud
Summerfield
Sumterville
Tavares
The Villages
Umatilla
UNION PARK
UNIVERSITY PARK
Webster
Weirsdale
WEKIWA SPRINGS
Wildwood
Windermere
WINTER GARDEN
Winter Haven
WINTER PARK
Winter Springs

Orlando
   Orlando, Florida, located in Orange County in Central Florida, is the tourist attraction capital of the world. Over 50 million visitors a year visit the Orlando area and its many attractions making Orlando the second largest city in the country for number of hotel rooms and one of the busiest convention cities in the country.
   Orlando is a new city. Although there are many beautiful lush older neighborhoods, little of the city predates the Disney World era. Consequently, Orlando has a fresh new look. Downtown Orlando is undergoing major development with many new gleaming office and residential towers. A new performing arts center and sports complex to be known as the Orlando Arena are scheduled for construction. Orlando sits at the intersection of Interstate 4 and the impressive Florida Turnpike giving visitors many options when traveling to and from the city.
   The population within the city limits of Orlando is 220,186 as of 2006 making it the sixth largest city in Florida while the Orlando-Kissimmee Metro area has 1,972,961 inhabitants making it Florida's third-largest metropolitan area, behind the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area and the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area.

Sports and Recreation
The Orlando area, as is all of Central Florida, is a great place to enjoy the outdoors. Central Florida is well known for its golf courses. There are over 1,200 golf courses in the state of Florida with hundreds of golf courses in Central Florida and the Orlando area offering year round golfing for every level of golfer. Golf is the most popular sport in Central Florida after boating. The Orlando region has countless lakes, the beautiful St. John River is nearby and the city is only 30 miles from the Atlantic Ocean making boating for both fishing and relaxation readily available to both locals and tourists alike.
Orlando is home to the University of Central Florida, original hosts of the Florida Citrus Bowl and the second largest university in Florida after the University of Florida at Gainesville which, by the way, is the third-largest university in the United States. The Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium in Orlando hosts not only University of Central Florida football but Bowl games, World Cup and Olympic soccer games and large scale music concerts. Orlando is also home to the NBA team, the Orlando Magic.

Nature and Wildlife
   For lovers of nature, the Orlando area has much to offer. Sandhill cranes can often be seen on Orlando area golf courses, manatees and dolphins swim the rivers and nearby Atlantic Coast and alligators frequently sun themselves in Orlando backyards. Orlando is less than an hour away from some of Florida's most popular and beautiful beaches including Daytona Beach, Coco Beach and New Smyrna Beach.
   The many springs in the Orlando area are each worth a visit. The clear water springs offer swimming, hiking on trails and picnicking under the large live oaks and cypress. The waters of Wekiwa Springs, 10 miles from downtown Orlando, and Blue Springs, 20 miles from Orlando, are absolutely gorgeous and include boardwalk walking paths through lush Florida palm forests. Silver Springs, located outside Ocala northwest of Orlando, has been a tourist attraction since the mid nineteenth century. Silver Springs is the largest of dozens of beautiful clear fresh water springs in the Orlando area. As a privately owned tourist attraction, it is more 'touristy' than other Florida springs which are usually located in state parks; however, the sheer size of the springs and the charming glass bottom boat rides make it well worth a visit.
   Central Florida is a true wildlife treasure. Florida is home to the second largest population of alligators in the United States with approximately 1,000,000 of the prehistoric reptiles roaming the state, after Louisiana with an estimated 2,000,000 gators. Visitors and residents of Central Florida need not travel far to see a gator. With the close proximity of humans to nature in Central Florida it is not unusual to see alligators even in the neighborhoods of Central Florida's largest cities such as Orlando or Tampa. With so many Central Florida neighborhoods built around lakes, on rivers, near marshes on the Gulf Coast just above Tampa and with navigation canals built through so many Central Florida neighborhoods, gators frequently sun themselves in the backyards of Central Florida homes.
   Central Florida is a Bird watchers paradise. Even Orlando, Tampa, Saint Petersburg and other cities in Central Florida are havens for many species of birds. In addition to abundant numbers of bird species seen on other areas of the country such as cardinals and mocking birds, Central Florida has many species of large subtropical birds such as sandhill cranes, egrets, herons and ibises. The lake region around Orlando is home to ospreys often seen with a freshly caught fish in their claws. Black bear are still numerous in the heavily wooded areas just north of Orlando and Tampa and the Florida panther, a protected species is still surviving in the region despite habitat loss.

Airports Serviced:

Orlando International Airport (MCO) - is a public airport located six miles (10 km) southeast of the central business district of Orlando, Florida.

Orlando Executive Airport (ORL) - is a public airport located 3 miles (5 km) east of the city of Orlando in Florida. It primarily serves the general aviation community.

Attractions
In addition to Walt Disney World, the Orlando area of Central Florida has many other well known tourist attractions including Universal Studios Orlando and Sea World. Orlando is conveniently located near many other Central Florida attractions such as the Daytona International Speedway in nearby Daytona Beach and the oldest tourist attraction in all of Florida, Silver Springs just outside Ocala about 80 miles from Orlando.
Orlando is just 30 miles due east of the Kennedy Space Center perhaps the most overlooked of Central Florida's many tourist attractions. Visitors to the Orlando area need only look in the eastern sky whenever there is a launch for a spectacular view of a satellite or space shuttle rocket in flight.

Walt Disney World
The best known of all Florida tourist attractions and the largest tourist attraction in the world is just twenty miles southwest of downtown Orlando. Walt Disney World Resort, better known as just Disney World, first opened for business on October 1, 1971, forever changing the face of Orlando and all of Central Florida. When it first opened there was only the Magic Kingdom. It has since expanded to include the Epcot Center, Disney-MGM Studios, Disney's Animal Kingdom, two water parks, six golf courses and an auto race track as well as a multitude of resort hotels, shopping, entertainment and dining establishments.
Located at the intersection of Interstate 4 and the Florida Turnpike, the land was citrus groves, cow pastures and swamp before Walt Disney spotted the intersection of two of Florida's busiest highways from the air and deemed it the perfect place for his newest and greatest theme park. Today, Disney World hosts over 20 million visitors a year and employs more than 58,000 people making it not just the largest employer in all of Florida but also the largest single site employer in the United States.

Festivals
The Orlando area hosts numerous festivals including some of the largest bike festivals in the world. Nearby Daytona Beach hosts the two best known bike festivals in Florida, the annual Daytona Bike Festival held in March and the Biketober Fest held each October.
Just 35 miles northwest of Orlando is the town of Leesburg in Lake county. The Leesburg Bike festival held each year in May is very popular with bikers and yet is known as a friendlier, slower pace version of those held in Daytona. Leesburg also has an annual Mardi Gras Festival complete with a parade, generously thrown Mardi Gras throws, live music and plenty of food. These two Leesburg festivals do not have the wild and crazy reputations of the originals in Daytona Beach and New Orleans but public drinking from open containers is allowed (only on these two festival days!) while the local police are quite friendly and the crowd well behaved.

Florida Oranges and Citrus
Before the opening of Walt Disney World in 1971, Orlando was a small agricultural center, better known as the center of Florida's orange and citrus industry than for tourist attractions. The Florida Citrus Tower, another of Florida's tourist attractions predating Walt Disney World having first opened in 1956, is located in Clermont, Florida in nearby Lake County. The tower is 226 feet tall and is built atop a hill affording a spectacular view of the region. Nearby Walt Disney World and the city of Orlando can be seen from the tower as well as many of the beautiful lakes in the area. When the tower was first opened over fifty years ago, the view was of orange groves stretching to the horizons.
Although many citrus groves still surround Orlando, the citrus industry has largely moved farther south making way for large scale development including many retirement communities. Many miles of citrus groves can still be seen in Central Florida however, particularly Lake and Polk counties, both located between Orlando and Tampa. Late November and early December is the perfect time to tour the orange groves when the trees are covered in brightly colored oranges, resembling round Christmas ornaments. The Lake Wales region in Polk County particularly along Alternate Highway 27 makes a great afternoon tour. Located just south of Orlando and Disney world, the area has rolling hills and a slow rural ambiance reminiscent of Old Florida before large scale development.

The Lake Region
Central Florida has hundreds of fresh water lakes. Many lakes are interlocking allowing easy access by boat from one lake to another. Bass fishing has long been a favorite activity in Central Florida lakes with world class bass tournaments held throughout the Central Florida area. Although speed and ski boats are common, the most popular boat in Central Florida waters are the ubiquitous pontoon boats. Perfect for leisure outings, the slow moving pontoon boats have large decks often equipped with barbecue grills and are the true 'party boats' of the Central Region of Florida.

Airports Serviced:

Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB) - The airport is conveniently located within the boundaries of the City of Sanford, in the northwestern section of beautiful Seminole County, Florida, 18 miles northeast of Orlando, Florida.

Leesburg International Airport - Located just six miles from Historic Downtown Leesburg, Florida and its primary business district and located northwest of Orlando, Florida..