In short
The history and evolution of American spring break, from early “hot springs” weekend trips to college road trips, Florida’s rise (Fort Lauderdale, then Daytona), and later party crackdowns and alternatives.
Guests
No guests are interviewed. Hosts Josh and Chuck discuss the topic; Michael Easter is mentioned for his separate iHeart podcast “2%.”
Key claims
Spring break’s “Where the Boys Are” identity is traced to the 1958 book by Glendon Swarthout (based on his Michigan State students’ Fort Lauderdale trip) and the MGM movie that followed. Fort Lauderdale grew after the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane and the 1928 Olympic-sized pool; college swim teams and bars like the Elbow Room helped it become a party hub. MTV’s 1986 “Spring Break” coverage boosted Daytona. Cities curbed spring break by changing drinking/cruising rules (e.g., Freaknik ended after anti-cruising laws; Panama City Beach limited beach drinking in 2015).
Notable examples
“Where the Boys Are” (book and MGM film), Great Miami Hurricane (1926), Fort Lauderdale pool (1928), Elbow Room, MTV Spring Break 1986 (Beastie Boys, Starship), Freaknik (1983 Atlanta; cruising), Freak Nick documentary on Hulu, Panama City Beach 2015 assaults/shootings, and Simpsons spring break episodes.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Origin of Spring Break
1:33 to 2:51
The hosts introduce the concept of spring break and its cultural significance.
“I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and everybody else is present in spirit, and this is Step You Should Know Short Stuff.”
Early Spring Breaks
2:52 to 4:25
Discussion on how college students historically took breaks in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
“That's why you sang, can you sing it again, please?”
The Impact of the Great Miami Hurricane
4:26 to 5:41
How the 1926 hurricane influenced tourism and the development of Fort Lauderdale.
“And so all of a sudden members of the opposite sex were really hanging out with each other a lot more.”
The Birth of College Spring Break Tradition
5:42 to 6:58
The hosts narrate the growth of spring break as a college tradition in Florida.
“He said, hey, guys, it's very cold and there aren't a lot of indoor training pools here.”
The Rise of Spring Break in the 1960s
7:26 to 10:55
Exploration of how spring break became popularized through media and books.
“We're hitting the road again, starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026, and eventually, Canada, we'll tell you your dates, too.”
The Evolution of Spring Break Destinations
10:56 to 12:10
Discussion on the expansion of spring break locations and the role of MTV in popularizing it.
“And by the mid 1980s, like close to 400 ,000 students were going just to Fort Lauderdale.”
The Emergence of Freaknik
12:11 to 14:01
Description of how Freaknik originated as a cultural event among Black college students in Atlanta.
“So spring break is going bad in Florida, in Fort Lauderdale.”
The Birth of Freaknik
14:01 to 14:42
Learn about the origins of Freaknik and its significance in Atlanta's culture.
“But before that, in 1983, a very key thing happened right here in the ATL when some black college students got together.”
Freaknik's Impact on Atlanta
14:42 to 15:44
Discover how Freaknik transformed Atlanta into a spring break hotspot for college students.
“And with people coming from all over the country and world even.”
The Decline of Freaknik
15:44 to 16:20
Explore the factors that led to the decline of Freaknik, including changes in laws.
“There's a great documentary that I can't recommend enough that was out a couple of years ago on Hulu called Freak Nick, The Wildest Party Never Told, that Atlanta's own Jermaine Dupri produced.”
Show all 12 chapters
Panama City Beach's Spring Break Issues
16:20 to 17:09
Understand the challenges faced by Panama City Beach during spring break and the measures taken.
“Panama City Beach, where we both went for spring break, that was for a very long time that accepted the spillover from Fort Lauderdale and became a spring break Mecca in and of itself.”
Alternative Spring Break Activities
17:09 to 17:40
Learn about alternative spring break programs that focus on volunteering and advocacy.
“Ours is in April, but it usually is in March.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Josh Clark:This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Chuck Bryant:Guaranteed Human. Hey, everybody. We're hitting the road again, starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026. And eventually, Canada, we'll tell you your dates, too.
0:15Josh Clark:That's right. We're going to do at least three legs. And the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th. and then finally back at Sketchfest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.
0:30Chuck Bryant:Yep, and then April 16th, 17th, and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois, and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry. You can get all the info you need and buy tickets at stuffyoushouldknow.com. Click on the tour button and thank us later.
0:49Josh Clark:That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.
0:54Chuck Bryant:2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%, that's T-W-O-percent, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:32Chuck Bryant:Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and everybody else is present in spirit, and this is Step You Should Know Short Stuff. Where the boys are. Is that the song? I think so. Oh. I always think of that Book of Love song. I want to be where the boys are.
1:52Josh Clark:Well, wait, you say yours. I want to hear it.
1:56Chuck Bryant:Oh, I want to be where the boys are, but I'm not allowed. You've not heard that song?
2:03Josh Clark:I didn't know Lou Reed sang a song like that.
2:06Chuck Bryant:Do I sound like Lou Reed?
2:08Josh Clark:I'll take that. You kind of speak singing, which is Lou Reed's deal.
2:12Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I do speak sing. I can't put my all into it.
2:15Josh Clark:Hey, man, a lot of people have made great careers out of speak singing. No shame.
2:18Chuck Bryant:That's right. All right. I might take you up on that and become a speak singer.
2:23Josh Clark:That's right. I mean, that's the gateway to being a white male rapper. So just be careful.
2:29Chuck Bryant:Okay. I will be careful. If you see me with like three lines cut into my side, the side of my hair, maybe take me out for some drinks and give me some talking to. I've done that accidentally. Oh, I have too. Well, Yumi did it accidentally to me, but I'm talking intentional.
2:49Josh Clark:Okay, yeah.
2:50Chuck Bryant:All right, so we're talking spring break. That's why you sang, can you sing it again, please? Where the boys are. That was lovely. That is actually, they think, where spring break, the American institution of going to warm places in the spring, usually from northern universities and getting plastered for a week, came from a book called, what's it called, Chuck?
3:15Josh Clark:Where the Boys Are.
3:17Chuck Bryant:Not bad, but okay. Speak singing. You got to say, Where the Boys Are.
3:24Josh Clark:Okay. I just want to be in your group.
3:26Chuck Bryant:Oh, yeah, we could do that. We could do a speak singing barbershop duo, not even a quartet.
3:32Josh Clark:Yeah, that's such a great bad idea.
3:36Chuck Bryant:Oh, we can also add the slide whistle you got me, too. It was like an extra thing.
3:41Josh Clark:Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's our only instrument as far as I'm concerned.
3:43Chuck Bryant:Yeah. So, where the boys are. All right.
3:49Josh Clark:So, you mentioned where the boys are a bunch. And that was sort of the big launching point for spring break. But we got to back up a little bit to some sort of ground laying, I guess. People since the 19th century, apparently American college students, even way back in the 1800s, would take little weekend breaks during the spring to like hot springs and maybe even to the coast to kind of, you know, get themselves right. And in the 20th century, early in the 20th century, the road trip was born and woman colleges, you know, woman only colleges were born. And you pair those things together and you're going to get girls going to see boys.
4:29Josh Clark:And so all of a sudden members of the opposite sex were really hanging out with each other a lot more.
4:33Chuck Bryant:Yeah. This is when Biff met Muffy.
4:36Josh Clark:That's right. And then people started drinking a lot more, like kind of out in public. Like if you went to the military at 18, like it was OK to, you know, go to a dive bar and get drunk. But that was kind of frowned upon in college. But starting, you know, around the early 1920s or so, college kids started drinking.
4:56Chuck Bryant:Yeah. That whole jazzy, I'm guessing, right? Probably. So there was an act of nature, a force of nature that also plays into this pretty prominently. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 that said, try again, Miami, and wipe Miami clean. And so the city had to rebuild into the version we know today. But as a part of this, the nearby city of Fort Lauderdale was like, we need to get people back here. So we're going to do the thing that cities have always done and still continue to do to attract tourists. And that is build an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
5:33Josh Clark:Yeah, I think it was more of a novelty at the time because that was certainly the first one in Florida in 1928. And not too long after, like five or six years later, there was a swimming coach from Colgate University in upstate New York where it's very cold. He said, hey, guys, it's very cold and there aren't a lot of indoor training pools here. So let's go down to Florida. They built this whiz-bang new pool in Fort Lauderdale. They went down there. They trained in the spring. And by 1938, the College Coaches Swim Forum was formed, and word had gotten around that it was like a good place to go train, which accidentally coincided with the opening of sort of a younger person's bar called the Elbow Room.
6:19Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and the Seabreeze Hotel. It sounds like my kind of place, man. A hotel bar? Love those. Same. I don't even drink anymore, and I still love a good hotel bar. They're great. So, yeah, these college athletes, these swim teams now had a place to be, Florida, and a place to party, the elbow room. And it's just started to kind of get back that, like, hey, there's this really fun thing that the swim teams are doing. Other swim teams kind of took part in this, too. And this idea kind of spread beyond college swim teams to just college students who started to come down to Fort Lauderdale in droves.
6:57Yeah.
6:57Josh Clark:Like, I like to drink. I like to flirt. I like to be in the sun.
7:02Chuck Bryant:I like a farmer's tan.
7:04Josh Clark:That's right. So maybe that's a great place to take a break. And we'll be right back with Where the Boys Are.
7:12Chuck Bryant:Where the Boys Are. Well, now, when you're on the road, driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's Stuff You Should Know. Stuff You Should Know. All right.
7:30Chuck Bryant:Hey, everybody. We're hitting the road again, starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026, and eventually, Canada, we'll tell you your dates, too.
Read the full transcript
7:41Josh Clark:That's right. We're going to do at least three legs, and the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado, at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at Sketch Fest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.
7:56Chuck Bryant:Yep, and then April 16th, 17th, and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois, and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry. You can get all the info you need and buy tickets at stuffyoushouldknow.com. Click on the tour button and thank us later.
8:15Josh Clark:That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.
8:21Chuck Bryant:2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts and more to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress.
9:00Chuck Bryant:Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O - % on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
9:23Josh Clark:with Chuck and Josh. Stuff you should know.
9:34Chuck Bryant:So, yeah, I guess we're finally at where the boys are, right? Because things have been kind of picking up steam through the 40s and the 50s. But then in 1958, there was an English teacher from Michigan State University. His name was Glendon Swarthout. And he said, hey, kids, I want to hang with you. Let's go down to spring break. I'm going to follow you around, and I'm just going to write about your escapades. And apparently it was debaucherous enough and just crazy enough that he managed to write a book out of like this, essentially this week in Fort Lauderdale with some of his students. And the name of that book was Unholy Spring.
10:15Chuck Bryant:Unholy Spring. Unholy Spring.
10:19Josh Clark:That's right. He changed the name to Where the Boys Are, of course. The book was a pretty big hit, but the movie really put it on the map when MGM put that out not too long after. And that's what really changed things. All of a sudden, Florida was on display as like where, well, where the boys are and where the girls are and what you need to be doing every spring. And, you know, we got some loose numbers here. I'm sure it's kind of hard to put great numbers on the 1960s spring break growth. But they said that, you know, basically tens of thousands of students started coming after that movie came out.
10:56Josh Clark:And by the mid 1980s, like close to 400 ,000 students were going just to Fort Lauderdale.
11:03Chuck Bryant:Man, in Fort Lauderdale, I mean, it's a city in Florida, but you had 350 ,000 extra people for over the course of like a month, probably like that's that's an impact for sure.
11:15Josh Clark:A bad impact at times.
11:17Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Like, that's the thing. If you trace the history of spring break, it's like fun, fun, fun, fun. It's awful now. And then murders and rapes. Fun, fun, fun, fun. Awful. Fun, fun, fun. Awful. And from what I can gather, Chuck, it turns awful when the middle aged dudes show up. That's when it turns awful because they should not be there. They have no business being there. Spring break is for college kids. When the older dudes show up, that's when things get dark and bad. Yeah.
11:47Josh Clark:Although, high school kids, I went to Panama City in high school, and it was dark and bad with high school kids, so I can assure you of that. Okay. I did, too. Because I was a good kid at the time.
11:55Chuck Bryant:I was not a good kid at the time. Yeah.
11:59Josh Clark:I mean, I was there. I was at those parties, but, you know, I was drinking my apple juice. I was pretending like I was drinking beer.
12:04Chuck Bryant:Oh, were you really? That's awesome.
12:06Josh Clark:I was. Very cringy to look back upon that.
12:08Chuck Bryant:Oh, I think it's sweet and really charming, actually.
12:12Josh Clark:Yeah. I can admit that now. I'm going to be 55 this weekend. All bets are off.
12:16Chuck Bryant:I know. How do you feel?
12:18Josh Clark:I feel like I'm 53.
12:20Chuck Bryant:You should have said spring break.
12:23Josh Clark:So spring break is going bad in Florida, in Fort Lauderdale. The town obviously gets together, and this seems to be sort of the rule, and say, all right, we've got to start curbing some drinking laws. The mayor goes on Good Morning America and says, you need to start going to other places. And they did. So all of Florida became destinations. Panama City, where I went, like I said, senior year, 89. And then Daytona Beach was another big one. And Daytona really grew after MTV in 1986 started broadcasting live for their MTV spring break party stuff.
12:56Chuck Bryant:Yes. The first year in 1986, they had live musical performances. That was just a part of everyone. But in that year, they had performances by the Beastie Boys and Starship. Yeah.
13:09Josh Clark:I mean, who else would you get? What else goes together better?
13:12Chuck Bryant:And I bet we can guess what song Starship performed. Starra.
13:17Josh Clark:Yeah. And We Built the City. Those are the two.
13:19Chuck Bryant:That We Built the City, though, is what also appears in one of the Better Simpsons episodes where the family goes on spring break and Homer keeps singing that song the whole time.
13:31Josh Clark:That's really funny.
13:32Chuck Bryant:And what's cool, I just can't not mention it. That's the second spring break episode The Simpsons did. The first one was where Bart and Milhouse and Nelson and at least one or two other kids like just ran away and went on spring break and ended up wearing wigs that they got out of the top of the sun sphere in Knoxville. And it's a good one. That's fun. OK, so go watch those two, I think, is the point of this episode. That's the takeaway.
13:58Josh Clark:So spring break's going big in Florida. MTV is there in the 80s and 86, like I said. But before that, in 1983, a very key thing happened right here in the ATL when some black college students got together. And we have some great historical black colleges and universities here in Atlanta. And not all of them went somewhere else for spring break. So one year in 83, they got together and said, hey, we're stuck here on campus. Let's have a big picnic and a big party. This is coming off of, you know, the song La Freque by Chic a few years earlier. And of course, the song Super Freak from Rick James was big.
14:34Josh Clark:And it was a picnic. So they called it Freaknik. And Freaknik became a humongous deal in Atlanta. And with people coming from all over the country and world even. But it blew up Atlanta for about a decade or so.
14:49Chuck Bryant:Yeah, like hundreds of thousands of people, ostensibly black college students mostly, just came to Atlanta and shut the town down because the main thing of Freaknik was cruising, right? And you just all of a sudden had an extra few hundred thousand cars on the main drags throughout Atlanta. And like, it would take you hours to get places that it should take you 10, 15 minutes because there were so many cars just stopped in the middle of the road. That was Freaknik. It was nuts.
15:26Josh Clark:Yeah. I mean, people started staying home, and, you know, white people were terrified because there were young black people having a lot of fun out in the streets. And the incidents of crime were here and there, but nothing like it was being portrayed in the news as, like, this sort of, you know, lawless situation happening. There's a great documentary that I can't recommend enough that was out a couple of years ago on Hulu called Freak Nick, The Wildest Party Never Told, that Atlanta's own Jermaine Dupri produced. But it's great. I highly recommend watching it.
15:58Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I think it actually did start to get pretty dark in the final years. It did. And again, because middle-aged dudes showed up. But one thing you can do if you want to crack down on spring break is make one or two new laws and it'll completely choke the life out of it. For Freaknik, they passed a law about cruising and that basically broke it up because that was the point of Freaknik. Panama City Beach, where we both went for spring break, that was for a very long time that accepted the spillover from Fort Lauderdale and became a spring break Mecca in and of itself. And in 2015, it got really bad.
16:38Chuck Bryant:There was like it was just I think it was like how it normally was, but just some really ugly stuff got out on social media. There was a girl who was unconscious and sexually assaulted. And there was a video of that that made its rounds. Eight people were shot in one house at one point. So Panama City got some really bad rep right then. And they did something about it. They said, you can't drink on the beach anymore. And that took care of it from that point on.
17:07Josh Clark:Yeah, there's still a ban. It's only in March, which is generally when spring break is. Ours is in April, but it usually is in March. So, yeah, that kind of did away with it. And, you know, that's kind of the deal with spring break. There are definitely a lot of universities now that do alternative things like programs where you can say like, hey, don't go out and just get drunk on the beach. Like go volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and their collegiate challenge or, you know, go work for HIV advocacy. So plenty of other options besides the traditional spring break for sure. For sure.
17:41Chuck Bryant:But yes, no matter what you're doing, whether it's working for Habitat for Humanity or you're, you know, staggering around Fort Lauderdale, every 10, 12 minutes, you have to shout, spring break. That's right. Short stuff is out.
17:59Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
18:02Chuck Bryant:For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. archaeologyляются. NAIL 10 TAR hopefully Thank you.
From the publisher
If you think Spring Break started with northern college kids heading to Florida to party, you'd be correct. But there's slightly more to it than that.
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