Florida Panhandle vacation questions????

[lukenick1]

Looking at beach vacation with teen boys. Never been to the panhandle before but have always wanted to check it out. Love the turquoise waters. What area is best for beach and activities? Panama City Beach, Destin, etc? Interested in renting a condo on the beach at a resort with nice pools and beach. Thanks

 

[Bamaclan4]

Panama City Beach is my families go to vacation. We have two boys as well and they love PCB. We enjoy renting a condo right on the beach. Our favorites are Aqua and Calypso due to location near Pier Park, a shopping and entertainment area. We've enjoyed the great restaurants, go carts, putt putt golf, banana boats, as well as going to the nearby state parks and cool 31A towns between PCB and Destin. We enjoy visiting Destin during our trips but PCB has more beach front properties at much better rates and offers more activities.

 

[cvjw]

We no longer vacation at pcb or destin. Just too many people. Think high rise condos on the beach. And all the people and traffic that go with the high rises. Our last trip to destin, it literally took an hour to drive to a restaurant for dinner.

We now rent houses at watercolor, which is a community along 30A. No worries about traffic jams. Everyone just rides their bikes to the beach, to pools, to shopping and to restaurants.

 

[Bamaclan4]

Watercolor is a beautiful area.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We rented a house in Blue Mountain Beach one year at spring break. It was nice - that area wasn't as busy as PCB or Destin, but close enough to Destin to go eat and shop.

 

[luvsJack]

We love Panama City too. Teens especially seem to like it. We get a condo or hotel room on the beach. Spend the days on the beach and night doing whatever. Fun restaurants, go kart tracks, exploring pier park, amusement parks, etc.

There is usually a lot of people there regardless of the week we go but the crowds have never really bothered us. We rent beach chairs with umbrella (HATE toting that stuff to the beach and back) and set up our little area with beach towels, coolers and whatever.

The only beach on the panhandle where the crowds have bothered us was Destin. It was just way too many people.

 

[NinaBella]

I lived in Panama City in middle school and have such fond memories of PCB with my friends (beach trips, the sand bar, Miracle Strip, Shipwreck Island). As an adult, I hate seeing what it has become with all the condos on the beach you can no longer see the beach from the road. We went to the Destin commons area on our trip a few years ago and I liked it better than what PCB has become. My years in PCB was pre-MTV Spring Break reality show. That came out last year in PCB when we were moving out-of-state.

I just returned home from Clearwater Beach and loved that all the big hotels and resorts were on the opposite side of the road except for the resorts and the very Northen and Southern points of the public beach at Pier 60.

We will go to the sand festival this years.
https://www.visitstpeteclearwater.com/event/pier-60-sugar-sand-festival/5201

 

[catfan98]

Fort Walton Beach is nice. No high rise condos as there is a building height restriction of 7 stories. 10 minutes to Destin, 30-40ish to PCB depending on traffic.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

We no longer vacation at pcb or destin. Just too many people. Think high rise condos on the beach. And all the people and traffic that go with the high rises. Our last trip to destin, it literally took an hour to drive to a restaurant for dinner.

We now rent houses at watercolor, which is a community along 30A. No worries about traffic jams. Everyone just rides their bikes to the beach, to pools, to shopping and to restaurants.

We go down once or twice a year and stay at the Hilton Sandestin Resort. We love it b/c there is good food within walking distance or we can hop in the car and cross the street to Baytown Wharf for more options. We also often turn right out of the resort and go down to that fancy shopping area and there is no traffic that way. We never ever turn left out of the resort to go into Destin. Yikes! The traffic is cray cray.