Phipps Ocean Park
2145 S. Ocean Blvd
832-0731
Tours are given weekday mornings.
Free.
A beautiful beach, some picnic tables, and grills, plus a Palm Beach County landmark in the Little Red Schoolhouse. Dating from 1886, it was the first schoolhouse in what was then Dade County.

Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens
253 Barcelona Rd.
832-5328.
Wed.-Sun. 11-4 (call ahead; schedule is not always observed) or by appointment.
This monument to the late American sculptor Ann Weaver Norton, second wife of Norton Museum founder Ralph H. Norton, consists of charming 3-acre grounds displaying seven granite figures and six brick megaliths. The plantings were designed by Norton, an environmentalist, to attract native bird life.

John D. Macarthur Beach State Park
Almost 2 miles of beach, good fishing and shelling, and one of the finest examples of subtropical coastal habitat remaining in southeast Florida can be found here. Guided walk is available to a mangrove estuary along the upper reaches of Lake Worth.

William T. Kirby Nature Center
Open Wednesday-Monday from 9 to 5and features exhibits on the coastal environment.
10900 Rte. A1A, North Palm Beach
624-6950

Lion Country Safari
Southern Blvd. West
793-1084
Van rentals available
Daily 9:30-5:30 last vehicle in by 4:30.
Drive (with car windows closed; no convertibles or pets) on 8 miles of paved roads through a 500-acre cageless zoo where 1,300 wild animals roam. Lions, elephants, white rhinoceroses, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, chimpanzees, and ostriches are among those in residence. Special exhibits include the Kalahari Bushvelt, designed after a South African plateau and containing water buffalo and Nilgai (the largest type of Asian antelope), and the Gir Forest, modeled after a game forest in India and showcasing a pride of lions. Stop by the petting zoo, or take a ride on the Safari Queen cruise.
Norton Museum Of Art
1451 S. Olive Ave.
832-5194.
Mon.-Sat. 10-5, Sun. 1-5 More Info
Constructed in 1941 by steel magnate Ralph H. Norton, this museum boasts an extensive permanent collection of 19th- and 20th-century American and European paintings with special emphasis on 19th-century French Impressionists. There are also Chinese bronze and jade sculptures, a sublime outdoor patio with sculptures on display in a tropical garden, and a library housing more than 3,000 art books and periodicals. Nine galleries showcase traveling exhibits as well as art from the permanent collection.

Palm Beach Zoo At Dreher Park
1301 Summit Blvd.
533-0887 or 547-9453.
Daily 9-5 (until 7 on spring and summer weekends).
This excellent zoo is a 23-acre complex with more than 500 animals representing more than 100 species, including Florida panthers, red kangaroos, and Bengal tigers. The newest exhibit, Tropics of America, has six acres of tropical rain forest plus Mayan ruins, an Amazon river village, and an aviary. Also of note are a nature trail, an Australian Outback exhibit, and a children's zoo.

Loggerhead Park Marine Life Center
1200 U.S. 1 (entrance on west side of park), Juno Beach, 627-8280. Donation welcome. Tues.-Sat. 10-4, Sun. noon-3.
Established by Eleanor N. Fletcher, "the turtle lady of Juno Beach," the center just south of Jupiter focuses on the natural history of sea turtles. Also on view are displays of coastal natural history, sharks, whales, and shells.

Lake Worth Municipal Park
Rte. A1A at end of Lake Worth Bridge
533-7367.
Pool. Daily 9-5.
This recreation area on the Atlantic Ocean has a beach, Olympic-size swimming pool, fishing pier, picnic areas, shuffleboard, restaurants, and shops.

Arthur R. Marshall-Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge
10119 Lee Rd., off U.S. 441 between Boynton Beach Blvd. (Rte. 804) and Atlantic Ave. (Rte. 806), west of Boynton Beach
734-8303
Daily 6 AM-sunset; visitor center weekdays 9-4, weekends 9-4:30
Entrance fees apply.
The refuge, established in 1951, is the last remnant of land in the northern Everglades in South Florida. It was acquired in an effort to protect migratory birds, endangered species and the remaining 147,368 acres of northern Everglades habitat. Celebrate Florida's National Wildlife Refuges. Discover the uniqueness of the Florida Everglades as you participate in a variety of programs offered free of charge. Be sure to bring a camera and binoculars to explore the nature trails or canoe trail. Look closely for anhingas, fulvous whistling ducks, smooth-billed anis, egrets, herons, alligators and turtles. Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge is full of surprises.

Lantana Public Beach
100 N. Ocean Ave.
no phone.
Daily 9-4:45.

Morikami Museum And Japanese Gardens
4000 Morikami Park Rd
495-0233.
Park and museum Fee charged except free Sun. 10-noon. Park daily sunrise-sunset; museum Tues.-Sun. 10-5; café Tues.-Sun. 10-5.
At this 200-acre cultural and recreational facility, there is a beautiful Japanese imperial-style villa with a display that recalls the Yamato Colony, an agricultural community of Japanese settlers who came to Florida in 1905. Gardens include the only known collection of bonsai Florida plants. There are also programs and exhibits in a lakeside museum and theater, as well as a nature trail, picnic pavilions, a library and audiovisual center, and a snack bar. Café serves light Asian fare.

International Museum Of Cartoon Art
201 Plaza Real
391-2200
Tues.-Sat. 10-6, Sun. noon-6.
Telephone first to verify hours.
Championed by Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker, this is the only museum of its kind in the world. It showcases more than 160,000 pieces of art created over two centuries by more than 1,000 artists from more than 50 countries: everything from turn-of-the-century Buster Brown cartoons to the Road Runner to Charles Schulz's Peanuts.

Boca Raton Museum of Art
Mizner Park, Boca Raton
Designed by Fort Lauderdale architect Donald Singer, the museum is on a sliver of land at the north end of Mizner Park. It is a two-story, 44,000-square-foot facility.
In 1999, two children passed a paper cup around Mizner Park, collecting $4 in change for a proposed new museum. They proudly presented their gift to the Museum which at that time was in crowded, temporary quarters. From that important beginning, it took three years to raise roughly $13.3 million in cash and pledges, which was over and above the project's original $10 million goal.

The handsome new building was recently unveiled in Mizner Park. Not only did the new museum open mortgage-free, but there was enough money left over to support an operating endowment, renovate the museum's old building on Palmetto Park Road into an art school and pay off the mortgage on the original expansion property at 700 Banyan Trail.
With room for larger temporary exhibitions on the first floor and chunks of the permanent collection on the second, the museum can show off more of its roughly 4,000 objects. Only about 3 percent of the collection could be exhibited at any one time in the old building, which also wasn't big enough to house some popular traveling shows. (The museum celebrated the opening with a large exhibition devoted to Pablo Picasso.)
The building also has an outdoor sculpture garden, an auditorium, children's education center, library and those indispensable amenities for a modern museum -- a big gift shop and a "grand hall" to host fund raising social benefits.

The American Orchid Society
487-6552.
Once housed in a Palm Beach mansion, the Orchid Society recently opened at its new headquarters on the grounds of the Morikami Museum
Featured are hundreds of breeds of orchids, the most common of which is the traditional prom corsage orchid, and the decorative dendrobium, a long stalk ranging from 4-18 inches with multiple flowers.

Christopher's Christmas Shoppe
North Palm Beach
848-4500
Visit the elaborate indoor/outdoor holiday displays, caroling by local choirs, surprise visits by Santa Claus for youngsters. A 13,000-square-foot building features quaint year-round Christmas Shoppe with large selections of trees, lights, ornaments of European glass, speciality ornaments and collectables such as Polonaise, Christopher Radko, Dean Griff, Winters Eve, Enesco, Pooh & Disney. Other collectables include a department of 56 villages and accessories, Seraphim, angels and snowbabies. Order or purchase custom designed wreaths and decorations. Go back in time with genuine Antique Christmas Ornaments and decorations.