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FLORIDA'S BEST BEACHES
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Dr. Beach rated the beaches here superior in certain areas or overall. For more information, visit Dr. Beach's website at www.topbeaches.com. Here are some excerpts from his book, "America's Best Beaches."

Daytona Beach

Daytona Beach is one of the most unique beaches in the world; it is the only place I know of where driving the family sedan along the beach is relished and even celebrated. Beach cruising is why Daytona is called the "World's Most Famous Beach." The fine, hard-packed sand along this incredibly wide beach was once used for car racing, attracting such notable figures as Henry Ford and Louis Chevrolet who came to test their engines, trot out new models, and set new speed records.

Panama City Beach

Fine sand beaches are generally gently sloping like Panama City Beach. There are hundreds of natural and artificial reefs offshore in the crystal clear water; Panama City Beach ranks with Key Largo in affording some of the best diving in the country. There is an abundance of excellent golf courses and a multitude of beach activities, including volleyball, skim boarding, swimming and parasailing. Panama City Beach is the number-one spring break beach in the country, attracting more than 300,000 people per year. While most of the folks from Georgia and Alabama arrive during the summer, I prefer the bumper season. Fall is the best time of year when the water is still warm, the air is refreshingly cooler and the crowds are a distant memory.

Miami Beach

Miami Beach is a world-class beach; it is rated the top City Beach in the Southeast with its fine promenades, wide sandy beach adorned with palm trees, and trademark hotels. The place to see and be seen is South Beach, which is the hottest beach in the country. This Art Deco area along fast-paced Ocean Drive has been restored since the early-80's to its former glory and designated a historic district. It is now the heartbeat of Miami Beach with movie stars, fashion models, and rollerbladers mixed in with the beach party crowd.

Clearwater Beach

There is a complete range of water activities, and swimming is great in the calm, clear waters of Clearwater Beach. Pier 60 is quite long in order to span the wide beach and reach deep water for fishermen, but it is also great for girl and boy watching. Clearwater offers the visitor a wide variety of accommodations from historic to modern hotels and motels as well as good but very reasonably priced restaurants. The local seafood is highly recommended, especially shrimp and stone crabs

Cape Florida, Key Biscayne

Cape Florida State Recreation Area, at the south tip of Key Biscayne, is one of the best beaches in the country, regularly making the top-20 list in my annual Best Beaches survey. With its clear, emerald-coloured waters and gentle surf on fine, white coral sand beach, it is the Best Swimming Beach in the Southeast. A large sand shoal offshore knocks down the waves, and rip currents are nonexistent except perhaps during stormy weather when only a fool or dedicated surfer would be in the water anyway. The water drops off so gradually that the beach is safe for small children.

Crescent Beach, Siesta Key

Siesta Key boasts that is has the "finest, whitest sand" in the world, but people along the panhandle beaches of Florida contest this claim. Crescent Beach at about mid-island is where these tiny grains of pure quartz sand are bottled by local promoters. Crescent Beach itself is also a delight - the real gem along this entire coastline, even rivalling some of the panhandle beaches but without any sand dunes. The clear, warm waters along this gently-sloping beach face make for ideal swimming. The beach itself is hundreds of yards wide, attracting young fitness types and beach volleyball players and fans.

Sanibel Island

Sanibel is known as the best shelling beach in the country. The hard-packed sand at the water's edge, where the shells are plentiful, make for an easy stroll and the casuarina trees provide shade, making Sanibel the Best Walking Beach in the Gulf. So many people lean over to pick up shells that this posture even has a name — the "Sanibel stoop." Whelks, cones, periwinkles, fighting conch, coquina, fans, lion's paw and sunray venus are in plentiful supply along the 14 miles of beach. The best time to go shelling here or elsewhere is after the January or February coastal storms when big waves drive the shells ashore by the thousands.

Santa Rosa Island

Gulf Islands National Seashore is a 150-mile-long, discontinuous string of undeveloped barrier islands that begins at Santa Rosa Island, Florida and extends into Mississippi. The Santa Rosa Island portion is seven miles of desolate shoreline, which is good for surfing when storms stir the Gulf. All the beaches along this barrier island have the same great sugar white sand and turquoise water as found throughout the panhandle. Your preference depends on the type of amenities and degree of nature that you seek. The most interesting landscape is to be found at Fort Pickens with its large dunes and wide variety of coastal vegetation. The fort itself is intact, and I enjoyed walking around the perimeter wall as a vantage point to scout the area.

Sandspur Beach, Bahia Honda Key

Bahia Honda Key is blessed with two wonderful beaches: Sandspur Beach on the oceanside (1992 National Winner) and Caloosa Beach near the Seven Mile Bridge. This is really a piece of the Caribbean as evidenced by the crystal clear, turquoise water, and white coral beach lined with coconut palms. The ocean water stays warm year-round, making it a beach for all seasons. The beach at Sandspur drops off gently and the lack of waves makes it ideal for bathing by young children, and for swimming, snorkelling and kayaking for everybody else.

Grayton State Recreational Area

Grayton Beach State Recreational Area is located smack in the centre of the Florida panhandle, and all descriptors of this area are given in superlatives. The sugar white sand is pure as the driven snow, the emerald green water is perfectly clean and clear and beach development has been restrained so big sand dunes still dominate the landscape. At the same time, all the amenities of great restaurants and pleasing accommodations are close-by in the old town of Grayton Beach or Seaside. Beautiful tidal lakes and freshwater ponds punctuate the natural landscape and yield ample fish to the dedicated angler. If all of this isn't enough, thousands of orange-coloured monarch butterflies pass through the area in the fall during their southward migration to Mexico.

St. Andrews State Recreational Area

St. Andrews State Recreational Area is a beach area that can only be described in superlatives — clear emerald to turquoise waters, pearly white sand and a beautifully sculpted landscape close to the amenities of Panama City. St. Andrews was the National Winner in 1995; it was selected just before Hurricane Opal devastated the developed coast. The storm waves cut back the big sand dunes and broke up the fishing piers at St. Andrews. Hurricanes are a part of the heritage, and natural beaches like St. Andrews will recover with no permanent or long-lasting damage. It will take a few more year before the dunes completely recover their size, but the beautiful beach was back the following year and the park was operational for summer vacationers.