So what is it actually like?

Built on purpose, all at once

South and east Orange: Medical City, the USTA campus, and a wave-shaped hotel, all master-planned inside twenty years. Streets are wide, the trees are young, and everything works. What it does not have is age — no brick, no shade, nothing accidental. Conway and Belle Isle on the north edge are the older, lake-wrapped exception.

Two SunRail stations. Sand Lake Road and Meadow Woods. Neither is close to Medical City.SunRail, sunrail.com/schedules · read 25 August 2026

Where am I, roughly?

Our own drawing of East Orange — the 4 stops on this tour, numbered
  • Orlando International
  • Medical City
  • USTA National Campus
  • The Wave & the sculptures
  • Gatorland
  • Hunter's Creek
  • Meadow Woods
  • Belle Isle & Lake Conway

and 4 more places on our East Orange map

Take the wheel — open the mapthe same drawing, yours to move around

Stop 1 of 4South Orange

Orlando International

The reason this whole side of town exists, drawn at the size it deserves.

Roads, jobs and the shape of every neighborhood here bend around the airfield. Nothing east of the 417 was planned without it.

Why is the code MCO, not OIA?

The airport sits on the old McCoy Air Force Base, and the designation stuck. Today it ranks among the ten busiest airports in the U.S.

Pozek Group area photography

Stop 2 of 4Lake Nona

Medical City

A hospital district built from empty pasture in about fifteen years.

Nemours, the VA hospital, UCF's medical school, a research institute. Thousands of badges, most of them new to Florida.

Why 'Medical City'?

Every major healthcare system in Central Florida has a presence here — hospitals, research institutions and medical education, planned into a single district.

Pozek Group area photography

Stop 3 of 4Lake Nona

USTA National Campus

One hundred tennis courts in a field, and the national team trains on them.

The city's soccer club trains next door. This corner got the sport before it got the houses.

How many courts?

One hundred — indoor and outdoor hard courts, Har-Tru green clay and European red clay — open to the public since January 2017. The home of American tennis trains here.

From our own illustrated guide

Stop 4 of 4Lake Nona

The Wave & the sculptures

A hotel with a sculpture garden, in the middle of what was cattle land.

The public art here is the tell: this was designed to be somewhere before anyone lived in it.

What's special about the hotel?

The Wave holds a MICHELIN Key and two MICHELIN-recommended restaurants — Nami for contemporary Japanese, Bacán for bold Latin flavors.

From our own illustrated guide

What would annoy you about living here?

Everything is ten minutes away by car and nothing is walkable between villages. It is new enough that the trees are small; shade is a decade away.

  • Orlando InternationalSome of these neighborhoods are under a flight path. Stand outside before you sign anything.
  • Medical CityEverything is ten minutes away by car and nothing is walkable between villages.

Can I talk to anyone here?

That was the drive. East Orange has a room, and it stays open after the tour ends — what’s on, what changed, what somebody is annoyed about this week.

Where this place talksThe East Orange room

Where else should I look?