The Most Beautiful Beach In America

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The Most Beautiful Beach In America

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As the second half of the summer starts, people continue to use the warm weather as a reason to go to the beach. Many beaches are on inland lakes, while others are on the ocean. Many beach cities have a mix of permanent residents and people who are visitors. As a matter of fact, many beach towns rely on tourists for the majority of their economic activity.

There are a number of ways to measure America’s favorite beaches. Some have well-liked attractions like casinos and theme parks. Others are isolated and private. Some are affordable. Others, which are havens for the rich, like Nantucket, are dominated by people with sky high incomes.
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The Family Vacation looked at beaches along America’s ocean coast to answer the question “What Is The Most Beautiful Beach In The US?” The researchers looked at Trip Advisor data and Instagram posts to decide on the best beach in America. Reviews have to include the word “beautiful.”

Each beach was given a score from 1 to 10. The top four beaches were all in Florida. They include Panama Beach (score 9.52), Pensacola (9.12), St. Pete (8.68), and Navarre Beach (8.37). Notably, none of these beaches are in large cities.

Panama Beach is in an isolated part of Florida along the Panhandle area, west of state capital Tallahassee. It is far from Florida’s large coastal cities which include Tampa, Miami, and Jacksonville. Its population is only 18,294 permanent residents, according to the Census. Obviously, the area is much larger when part time residents and tourists are included.

Interestingly, Panama City is middle class–at best. Median household income was $65,253. The median value of a home is $266,900, well below the national average.

It is hard to say why smaller beach cities do so well. For Panama City, it does not matter.
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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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