Daytona Beach Shores Travel Guide

The tried-and-true abounds in this area. Grandma was given $30 in gift cards at the timeshare presentation to spend at her choice of Red Lobster or Olive Garden. We had never been to an Olive Garden before, and we were pleased that our meal was both delicious and a good value.

Daytona Beach itself has several visitor information centers. South Atlantic Avenue and Highway A1a are easy landmark roads. It's easy to find your way around the area by car.

The stores along South Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach Shores are reminiscent of those you find at the Jersey Shore beach towns of southern New Jersey. They sell all sorts of beach-related gear, local souvenirs, all with a tropical motif. I found a store that sold Mardi Gras beads, and since this Florida trip was actually taken in lieu of another vacation we have planned for New Orleans, I was thrilled to get a strand of beads for my daughter .

Unlike us, not everyone travels to Daytona Beach Shores in the company of a savvy real estate professional who knows how to deflect aggressive salespeople. The average tourist is easy prey for the timeshare companies. In our case, we were pursued by a couple in a souped-up old car with a shiny purple lacquer job. They cornered us in the parking lot of the Acapulco as we were loading our car to leave. We finally persuaded them we didn't qualify for the presentation because we'd just come from one (you can only get so many of these cheap vacations in a certain timeframe), but we noticed the couple working the parking lot of several other hotels up and down South Atlantic Avenue before we left town. Clearly they must work on a commission basis -- i.e., how many marks they bring in each day for a presentation. Even though Grandma says the numbers really do make sense, be careful when you don't have someone like her sitting there to cut through the sales hype and general BS that goes with this sort of thing!

Favorite thing: Reasonable prices! There's plenty of competition for lodging in the summertime in Daytona Beach Shores. This area is a huge mecca for companies selling real estate vacation timeshares. If you comply with their requirement of sitting through a 90 minute sales pitch, the company sponsoring your visit will typically give you cheap lodging in a 3-star hotel, free passage on a casino boat, and a $30 voucher good for dinner at either a Red Lobster or Olive Garden. My daughter's grandmother, a retired real estate brokerage president, decided that she'd take advantage of the deal so we could have an inexpensive holiday while we visited her in Florida. In the end, they couldn't sell her anything, but she did come away convinced that the timeshare wasn't such a bad investment after all. It is a bit of a tacky turnoff, though, to see the hucksters driving up and down the boulevards collaring every tourist they can find to lure to the presentations. Buyer beware!