Swap ‘til You Drop – Fort Lauderdale | Discover America

Just when you thought it was safe to head for the beach, the siren's song of dirt-cheap bargain-hunting draws you inland to a sprawling, sun-baked patch of land where you can park free, get in free, browse free, and (depending on your negotiating skills) load up with eclectic acquisitions or plain swell stuff for darned-near free.

From Barbie dolls to slightly used miter saws and tubes of off-brand toothpaste, here's a place where you can feel free to squeeze nickels until the buffalos moan. Fort Lauderdale's Swap Shop -- among Florida's largest tourist draws long before the arrival of dot.com busts and roller-coaster economics -- is a 180,000-square-foot shopping-entertainment complex on 88 acres that makes it possible to find a Carly Simon Hotcakes album for a dime, apparel items for 10¢ each (make that a dozen for a dollar), workpants for under $10, or 30 sticks of hand-dipped mango incense for a couple of bucks. Intangible rewards? Psychic readings are negotiable, and it's $15 for 15 minutes of bliss at the Chinese Backrub Booth, near a stall where you can get tailoring and alterations done while you wait. A small midway with a merry-go-round near the pedestrian walkway over Sunrise Boulevard, houses a giant video arcade, and eateries with seductive aromas. You can hang around past dusk to catch flicks like Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the Swap Shop Drive-In, now grown to 15 screens.

Established in 1963 by Betty and Preston Henn, the latter a forever-in-faded-blue-jeans Broward power broker, Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop stems from what originally was known as the Thunderbird, one of America's then-ubiquitous drive-in theaters. By 1966, Henn started farming out his land as a weekend flea market, patterned after what he'd spotted in California. As drive-ins went bust across the nation, the Thunderbird held on, propped up by Swap Shop revenues. By 1979, Henn had put up a building as an open-air food court surrounded by vendors hawking Wednesday through Saturday. In 1988 he walled it in, adding air-conditioning and a stage where local bands jammed at no charge. Next came the arrival of the Hanneford Family Circus, still appearing several times daily. In 1990 singer Ronnie Milsap kicked off a free-concert tradition. And the rest, as they say, is bargain-hunter, drive-in-movie-aficionado history.

Henn, a handsome devil now well into the un-sunny side of 70, made news in 2005 when he got into a scuffle with a tenant, after which Broward Sheriffs Office deputies took a notion to taser-gun the Swap Shop king. Henn bounced back with with an ad campaign proclaiming "Crazy…Loco…Insane…Our Swap Shop prices are so low that they're tasering me." Not so crazy is the fact that this "shop" pulls in more than 12 million visitors a year.

Tri-Rail runs Swap Shop shuttles on Saturday from points in Broward, Palm Beach, and Dade counties, and some hotels arrange transportation. Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop grounds are between Interstate 95 and Florida's Turnpike.

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