My small hometown in the Sunshine State is the perfect place to visit throughout the year with its perennial temperatures averaging a perfect 75 degrees. The town originally began around the late 19th century pineapple farm of Danish immigrant John Laurence Jensen, who gave our town both its name and its former title as the “Pineapple Capital of the World”. Jensen Beach, part of South Florida’s famed “Treasure Coast”, sits near several bodies of water including the Atlantic Ocean, Indian River and Lagoon, and St. Lucie Inlet.
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Whether you are a snowbird migrating for winter or a family on summer vacation, you’ll enjoy the sugary beaches, refreshing Atlantic waters, and swaying palms of Jensen Beach. There are parks for children to romp around in (from Indian RiverSide Park to Sailfish Splash Waterpark), boardwalks for you and your special someone to stroll along (under the Roosevelt Bridge), and eateries and shopping destinations throughout the area (the Treasure Coast Mall or Pineapple Plaza, for some examples). Boating and fishing opportunities are also available.
Local flavor and fashion can be found at Downtown Jensen where there are several seafood restaurants ready to satiate your stomach as well as boutiques to beautify you in beachy homemade bracelets.
You can visit and even stay on our barrier island a few minutes away. Hutchinson Island has copious beaches and cute boutiques. The Environmental Studies Center, House of Refuge on Hutchinson, Hobe Sound Wildlife Refuge, and Florida Oceanographic Center are all dedicated to the research and preservation of our local ecology and are great places for learning more about our natural landscape. Sea turtles find refuge on our beaches; so many areas of the beach are staked off to protect sea turtle nests. You may want to go on a turtle nesting tour if you visit us during the sea turtle nesting season, usually around the summer months of May, June, and July, to scout out some of our most precious treasures here on the Treasure Coast—our endangered green, loggerhead, and leatherback turtles.
Or perhaps treasure brings to your mind altogether different scenery—sunken Spanish galleons carrying the riches of the New World and the royal houses of old. And you wouldn’t be too far off in that supposition, for that is what the area is “known for”. While I have yet to come across any Spanish treasure on my tours of the beach here, perhaps you will have better luck than I!
There is so much to do here in Jensen Beach, whether you are looking for soothing relaxation or family-friendly adventure! That’s why I love it and that’s why you will, too!
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