Ft Lauderdale shopping is great! Whether you're looking for a Fort Lauderdale area mall to spend some time in and beat the heat, browse antiques, buy necessities or furnish your second home from a bigbox store—it's all here. And because Fort Lauderdale is so well located you can head down to Miami within an hour or go north towards Boca, Delray or West Palm Beach and continue your shopping there.
The main mall in Fort Lauderdale is
The Galleria located on Sunrise Blvd. between the A1A and Highway 1.
The Galleria has large department stores like Macy's, Neiman Marcus and Burdines as well as specialty boutiques. This is where our local Mac store is located! The large sprawling building offers wide open, indoor walking routes, and there are several restaurants located on the outside – with valet parking nearby.
TIP: Show your non-Florida ID and get 10% off all purchases at Macy’s—just go upstairs to gift wrapping and they’ll provide you with a visitor’s pass that you present to the sales clerk to get your discount.
Outlet mall enthusiasts will be in heaven when they discover
Sawgrass Mills, about 25 minutes inland from the beach, straight up Sunrise Blvd. It's a Mecca for discount Ft Lauderdale shopping!
Sawgrass is a huge complex with high-end discount stores like Saks Off 5th Avenue and Neiman Marcus' Last Call, and discount appliance and home audio stores, a Super Target, a food court fit for a king—along with the hundreds of other chain stores and boutiques. Weekends and holidays are the busiest, so if you have the freedom to go during the week, do it.
In addition to the indoor mall, Sawgrass Mills has an outdoor section called
The Colonnade Outlets where all the designer outlet boutiques can be found. We’ve gotten some really incredible buys here, the problem is that you never know when they’re going to have an additional big blow out sale on top of their already reduced prices.
On your way up to Sawgrass, you can always stop by the
Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop which is one of the largest outdoor flea markets around. They have everything from fresh fruit and vegetables to electronics and watches and all kinds of other new and used goods.
The other flea market in the Fort Lauderdale area is the
Festival Flea Market on West Sample Road. It's an indoor market that concentrates mainly on new goods and is no where near as fun as the Swap Shop.
For Ft Lauderdale street shopping,
Las Olas Blvd. is probably your best bet. Known as the "style mile" Las Olas is lined with independent boutiques, galleries and restaurants and is a great destination for window shoppers and hard core buyers.
We'll cover the Hard Rock Casino in another section, but just know that there is an outdoor promenade of shops and restaurants attached. There are all kinds of stores that will trade goods for your winnings!
Dania Beach, located along Highway 1, just south of the Fort Lauderdale Airport is a great source for antiques. Hey, this is Florida—there are lots of old things here (including us).
Always remember that you are smack in between Miami and Boca Raton, so for us, Ft Lauderdale shopping extends to both these towns and everywhere in between, each with their own huge shopping sources.
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