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Florida Gulf Coast Update

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It has been two months now since Southwest Airlines began service to Panama City Beach, Florida, and I can tell you the excitement of helping to bring my favorite airline to my favorite beach  is a memory I will treasure.  I have been coming to the Beaches of Northwest Florida for more than 23 years, and the beaches have never been more pristine! On my recent visit to the area, I found there was more sand than I have seen in a while!   This is no ordinary sand, its sugary white sand.  The water is still emerald green (which is typical year round unless there has been a storm) and the sea oats on the sand dunes have grown taller since last summer.  Our family has many traditions at the beach and one of our favorite activities is to get our family and friends together and take a sunset cruise out to Shell Island which is located off the bay of Panama City Beach.  We usually bring wine and food and watch the dolphins swim alongside the boat on the way to the island.  Here is a picture we took two weeks ago at Shell Island at Sunset:



There are 17 beautiful beaches between Mexico Beach and San Destin Beach.  Each beach community has a different personality and feel and each experience is only minutes away from the next experience. The area is one of few in the country with rare coastal dune lakes, charming planned communities and something for everyone. See my friend Sam below taking a siesta with every floatie he could find!



While working on the branding of Panama City Beach, we discovered that people had no idea that this area included 17 beaches.  Think of San Destin area to the West, Scenic Hwy 30 A (which includes 15 beach villages) in the middle and Panama City area to the far east. That is why we came up with “17 Undiscovered Beaches, One Revealing location” as our tagline, “ Welcome to the Beaches of Northwest Florida”  as our positioning, and Panama City Beach, Florida as the city locator of where  we fly to in order to experience the beaches.    Click here to check out the location of each of these,

You can learn more about each of these areas by going to these web sites: 

Walton County – http://www.beachesofsouthwalton.com/

Bay County - http://visitpanamacitybeach.com/

4 Comments
cfox
Frequent Flyer C
I was there just this weekend and it was as beautiful as ever!!!
Murray_Balkcom
Explorer C
Our beach names get confusing for most visitors, and even people who own beach homes here. I've been living in the 30A area for a while so know the area very well. You might want to research the area you are calling "San Destin" a little more. "Sandestin" is actually a resort stretching from the beach to the bay, which people commonly call the geographic area between 30A and Destin. Destin is an actual incorporated city, located to the west of Sandestin Resort. I'm not sure if you are trying to include Destin in your marketing, but are calling it San Destin. VPS airport is closer to Destin and will probably be the airport which people in Destin fly out from, if fairs are comparable to ECP. I hope that helps a little, and if not, I'll be happy to help you further. Best Regards, Murray Balkcom, Realtor The Premier Property Group ps- I like the new blog, but please be sure to post links of new blog posts to your FaceBook page, which seems to be the easiest way to be notified when new posts are entered.
Thomas_B
Explorer C
You missed the boat on this one. The prettiest beaches are actually about 5 miles west of Sandestin in Destin, FL. The beaches are bigger thus making them less crowded. Panama City is more for the spring break crowd where Destin is much more up scale and family oriented. Plus, the airfare at VPS is much cheaper than Panama City.
Julius_P
Explorer C
Just wondering what you will do when the $26 Million St Joe subsidy runs out at Panama City. Clearly they are only a leisure market from Apr-Aug, Just curious.