If you hadn't gone on vacation in a little while and you wanted to go to a place with a beach, where would you all recommend (in the U.S.)?

 

Any other requirements other than a beach?

Kid friendly? Adult friendly?

When we went to Gulf Shores there were 8 of us. We had a beach house in a gated community of about 8-10 houses, that had a private pool, private tennis court, an outdoor patio area with a large grill, and access to a private beach less than 100 yards away. It was extremely reasonably priced as well IMO.

 

If anyone is looking into going down there, I can probably get you name of where we stayed if anyone is interested. I loved it.

 

I will definitely keep this in mind. Thank you all for the suggestions thus far loving reading this and hearing about cool places I haven't been to. My friend lives in Charleston and she absolutely loves it. Heard it was a great city but having never been there I'm not sure what seperates it from others.

Hilton Head

Welcome to BGP, George Amberson!

If you hadn't gone on vacation in a little while and you wanted to go to a place with a beach, where would you all recommend (in the U.S.)?

 

It's a little bit of a stretch on the "in the U.S." portion of your original post, but Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States. I went there on my honeymoon, and it was REALLY surprisingly affordable (and GORGEOUS). Most everyone there speaks English, I didn't notice much of any cost inflation on anything - from food, to gas, to lodging, no passports needed, no need for currency exchange, and phones only get charged a regular U.S. long distance charge, just like you're calling from anywhere in the lower 48.

 

The real kicker to making it affordable, though, is flexibility in scheduling a flight to the island. I think our round trip tickets from CVG cost like $320 a piece, traveling Tuesday to Tuesday. I talked to a guy on one of the tours we took, though, and he and his wife had just put a search notification on Kayak for flight deals to Puerto Rico, and then they scheduled their trip around the dates of the cheapest flight deal they could find. They were from San Francisco, and got round trip tickets from SFO to San Juan's SJU airport for $220 each. It's tough to say no to a Caribbean vacation for that cheap.

I like the white sands and clear water of southern Florida and the Gulf coast. I'm not a fan of the murky waters of the Atlantic, and I'm not into all the touristy stuff. If I'm going to the beach, it's to stay on the beach and just relax all week with the family. We went to Gulf Shores last year, and we really enjoyed it. We had a 1st floor, 2 bedroom condo on the beach for $1200. We found that if you went to dinner at 4:30pm CT, you could walk right in and sit down. This was very nice with 2 kids, and being that we're used to eastern time, it was 5:30 to us, so perfect dinner time. The only negative was the number of shark sightings. We got out of the water 3 times during the week due to sharks, and a good size one was almost caught off the pier when we walked out on it. There are some hammerhead youtube videos from Gulf Shores that took place a couple weeks before and after we were there. I don't know if this is common down there, but we never ran into the issue in Panama City, Destin, or Clearwater.

Went there for a CE course. Nice but everything there was extremely overpriced, IMO

 

I don't think it's any more expensive than any other desirable beach destination as they all are pretty much a little more pricey than the average town/area. And if talking lodging, depends on the time of year as well. True you can be raked over the coals in a lot of these type of areas if visiting at peak tourist season.

New Smyrna Beach. Close to Daytona, is a No drive beach for most of it and is quaint and relaxing

We just stayed on the Gulf between Destin and Miramar Beach in Florida. Rented a townhouse right on the beach. It had room for 8-10 people comfortably, had decks on three levels and the bottom deck sat 5 stair steps from the beach. There is about a half mile or so of rentals in a row and no public access to the beach...we were there on fall break and there were never more than 10 people within 50 yards of us any day on the beach. Several good local and touristy things to do. I never feel the tourist pressure like you would in say Daytona or Gatlinburg, feels like most of the people there are locals even if they are not. The sand on the beach feels light brown sugar but is white and even seems to stay cool even when the sun is hot.

 

We've stayed at Daytona Shores, St. Pete Beach, Myrtle Beach, Gulf Shores and the North Shore of Oahu over the last several years and Miramar Beach near Destin has the best beach we've seen.

 

PM me if you want info for place right on the beach

I like the white sands and clear water of southern Florida and the Gulf coast. I'm not a fan of the murky waters of the Atlantic, and I'm not into all the touristy stuff. If I'm going to the beach, it's to stay on the beach and just relax all week with the family. We went to Gulf Shores last year, and we really enjoyed it. We had a 1st floor, 2 bedroom condo on the beach for $1200. We found that if you went to dinner at 4:30pm CT, you could walk right in and sit down. This was very nice with 2 kids, and being that we're used to eastern time, it was 5:30 to us, so perfect dinner time. The only negative was the number of shark sightings. We got out of the water 3 times during the week due to sharks, and a good size one was almost caught off the pier when we walked out on it. There are some hammerhead youtube videos from Gulf Shores that took place a couple weeks before and after we were there. I don't know if this is common down there, but we never ran into the issue in Panama City, Destin, or Clearwater.

We saw one shark and a guy on a dolphin cruise said they had seen a large Bull Shark that morning. Newspaper had a story about a kid recovering from shark bite.

We just stayed on the Gulf between Destin and Miramar Beach in Florida. Rented a townhouse right on the beach. It had room for 8-10 people comfortably, had decks on three levels and the bottom deck sat 5 stair steps from the beach. There is about a half mile or so of rentals in a row and no public access to the beach...we were there on fall break and there were never more than 10 people within 50 yards of us any day on the beach. Several good local and touristy things to do. I never feel the tourist pressure like you would in say Daytona or Gatlinburg, feels like most of the people there are locals even if they are not. The sand on the beach feels light brown sugar but is white and even seems to stay cool even when the sun is hot.

 

We've stayed at Daytona Shores, St. Pete Beach, Myrtle Beach, Gulf Shores and the North Shore of Oahu over the last several years and Miramar Beach near Destin has the best beach we've seen.

 

PM me if you want info for place right on the beach

 

Hold up, you just told me in another thread the other day that you were traveling less due to gas prices now you're telling about all of the beaches you've been to the last few years.

We saw one shark and a guy on a dolphin cruise said they had seen a large Bull Shark that morning. Newspaper had a story about a kid recovering from shark bite.

 

I saw one of the sharks, it was about 5 feet long. Not sure of the type as I just saw the shadow in the water and the dorsal fin and tail out of the water. I didn't see the other two, just people yelling shark and everyone clearing the water. The first half of the week, the water was pretty murky due to the storms the prior week. The one off the pier must have been good size by all the commotion. I never saw it, but I saw the remains of the fish the kid caught. It appeared to be a good size fish, and all that was left on the hook was the head.

 

Here is a video of a guy pulling a hammerhead on shore 2 weeks before we got there. They were still talking about it on the news when we were down there.

 

Hawaii is in the U.S. It's the nicest place I've been.

I saw one of the sharks, it was about 5 feet long. Not sure of the type as I just saw the shadow in the water and the dorsal fin and tail out of the water. I didn't see the other two, just people yelling shark and everyone clearing the water. The first half of the week, the water was pretty murky due to the storms the prior week. The one off the pier must have been good size by all the commotion. I never saw it, but I saw the remains of the fish the kid caught. It appeared to be a good size fish, and all that was left on the hook was the head.

 

Here is a video of a guy pulling a hammerhead on shore 2 weeks before we got there. They were still talking about it on the news when we were down there.

 

 

Moron!!!

Hilton Head: Like it a lot. The public access beach can get REALLY crowded so try to get a condo or stay at a hotel that has their own section. Lots of food choices.

 

Charleston: May be my favorite if you mean Folly Beach. It's the truest beach town feel of any beach area outside of Hawaii that I've been to. Plus you have Charleston and all of its food and scenery only 15 minutes away.

 

Destin: Yes if we're talking 20 years ago. Way too crowded now IMO.

 

Siesta Key is my second favorite beach. Outside of Sarasota. GREAT beach.

 

I've never been to Myrtle Beach. Seems too t-shirt shop /putt-putt for me.

 

Not well known but nice is St Simons Island , GA which is north of Jacksonville. Nice feel to it. Hour drive to Savannah.

 

I've only been to the Outer Banks area once. OK. Not great.

 

I like laid-back beaches. I'm not into the expensive areas that also have a beach so...