Florida Peninsula

The Space & Treasure Coast

rockets north, shipwreck gold south

Open the interactive map →

Drive

Titusville → Jupiter

Distance

~135 miles

Time

1–2 days

Highways

US 1 · A1A

Avoids

I-95

Region

Florida Peninsula

The Indian River Lagoon carries this whole route: rocket launches mirrored in the water at the top, and at the bottom the reason they call it the Treasure Coast. A hurricane wrecked Spain's 1715 silver fleet along these beaches, and coins still wash up after storms. In between, Fort Pierce gave America the Highwaymen, Black landscape painters who sold Florida dreamscapes from their car trunks and ended up in the Smithsonian.

📍 1715 fleet markers dot A1A from Sebastian to Fort Pierce; launch-viewing pullouts line US 1 in Titusville.

The drive, segment by segment

Rocket Row

Titusville → Melbourne · ~40 mi

Space View Park's launch sightlines, the Merritt Island refuge sharing a fence with the pads, and old Cocoa Village.

• 🏛️Space View Park — Titusville

  The classic free launch-viewing spot across the lagoon from the pads, wrapped in the US Space Walk of Fame: handprints of Mercury through Shuttle crews.

• 🌿Black Point Wildlife Drive — Merritt Island

  A seven-mile dirt loop through the refuge that shares a boundary with Kennedy Space Center: roseate spoonbills, gators, and a launch gantry on the horizon.

The 1715 Fleet

Melbourne → Fort Pierce · ~45 mi

Sebastian's treasure museums, Vero's old-money beach town, and the wreck line running just offshore the whole way.

• 🏛️McLarty Treasure Museum — Sebastian

  Built on the actual survivors' camp of the 1715 fleet disaster. Eleven ships, a hurricane, and Spanish silver that beachcombers with metal detectors still find.

Jupiter's Light

Fort Pierce → Jupiter · ~50 mi

The Highwaymen's hometown, the last House of Refuge on the coast, and the 1860 red lighthouse at the inlet.

• 🎬A.E. Backus Museum & the Highwaymen — Fort Pierce

  Backus taught a generation of Black painters who, shut out of galleries, sold fast, glowing Florida landscapes door to door. The Highwaymen made 200,000 paintings; this is their shrine.

• 🏛️Navy UDT-SEAL Museum — Fort Pierce

  The frogmen trained on this beach for D-Day. The only museum dedicated to the SEALs, on the sand where their story started.

• 🏛️Gilbert's Bar House of Refuge — Stuart

  The last of ten 1876 houses of refuge built to shelter shipwrecked sailors on this empty coast. Oldest structure in Martin County, sitting on bare rock over the surf.

• 🏛️Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse — Jupiter

  Lit in 1860, designed by a pre-war George Meade, who would be busy at Gettysburg three years later. Climb it for the whole Treasure Coast in one look.

Worth a detour

• Archie Carr NWR — The densest loggerhead sea-turtle nesting beach in the Western Hemisphere. Guided night walks in June and July; book early.
• Blowing Rocks Preserve — Limestone shoreline on Jupiter Island that throws surf 50 feet into the air at high tide. The oddest geology on Florida's east coast.

Spurs & side-roads

• Merritt Island NWR & Black Point Drive