Best Beaches

With oceans on three sides, America has a lot of beaches to get to know. So to try to figure out which beaches in the country are the best ones can be a pretty tall order. For one thing, if you made it your full time job to visit all the major beaches in the country, it would take you years at least and by the time you got to the last one, you might have forgotten the first one. But more importantly, what criteria you use to judge a good beach is pretty individual and there are so many great ones, you might end up with a tie for the top with dozens of beaches contending for the spot.

Florida, obviously has great beaches which can be supported by the huge popularity those beaches are for college kids on spring break looking for lots of fun and sun. The sand on the most popular Florida beaches is as soft as it gets on this continent and the water is warm and clear that makes it good for snorkeling, surfing or swimming. And Florida has a lot of beaches so you can find a lot of variety in types of beaches all short distances from each other.

The gulf coast has a lot to offer for warm almost tropical beaches that you can enjoy without leaving the country. Galveston, for example has some delightful beaches that are very often very calm with gentle slopes so you can let the family play all day in the surf without a lot of concern for the undertow. Of course, the gulf coast also is the target for a lot of hurricanes so picking your season is important. You don't want to ride out even a tropical storm down there. That is no vacation. The east coast has many fine beaches all nestled in some of the best urban vacation spots in the country. You can let your family enjoy some time on one of New Jersey's many lush beaches and the next day be walking in Central Park or eating in Chinatown in Manhattan. Similarly, you can plan a wonderful family vacation to Boston and walk the freedom trail and see the many historic things that are available there. And then the next day it is just a short drive north to Revere Beach which is long and inviting and just as relaxing and fun as any beach you will find in the southern states.

Of course, the beach culture is so strong in California that a whole genre of music was spawned there and we even have a string of movies in our film history devoted to the beach life in the southern part of the state. Any visit to southern California would not be complete without some time scheduled to frolic on their famous beaches. But wherever you go in this big country, you can find beaches to give you that time in the sand and surf that can make vacation memories to last for years.