🏖️ Beaches

Delray Beach

Delray Beach, FL · Palm Beaches

About

Two miles of soft, wide sand run straight off the east end of Atlantic Avenue, so you can walk from a downtown lunch into the surf in about five minutes. Lifeguard towers, beach volleyball, and rented cabanas keep the public stretch busy from sunrise swimmers to sunset crowds, with warm Atlantic water and an easy break that suits boogie boards and first-time surfers. When you have had enough sun, Atlantic Avenue waits a block back with its sidewalk cafes, galleries, and a nightlife that runs late.

Highlights

Two miles of wide public sand off Atlantic AvenueBeach volleyball, lifeguard towers, and rentable cabanasWarm, gentle Atlantic surf for swimming and beginner boardsA block from Atlantic Avenue's cafes, galleries, and nightlife

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Cross the long boardwalk over the Lake Worth Lagoon and the maritime hammock drops you onto nearly two miles of wild Atlantic sand with no resort wall behind it, just dunes knitted with sea grape and weathered driftwood. The Anastasia coquina rock reef sits close to shore, so the same warm water that washes up whole, unbroken shells turns into shallow snorkeling on a calm low tide. It is a working refuge for nesting sea turtles and wading birds, the kind of beach where you walk a few minutes north and have the surf to yourself.

Lake Worth Beach Beaches

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The William O. Lockhart Municipal Pier reaches almost a thousand feet over the Atlantic here, and the sandbars it kicks up give Lake Worth Beach the most reliable surf in South Florida, so you will find longboarders trading waves while families spread out on the wide white sand. Behind the beach the 1920s-style Casino Building anchors a boardwalk of taco counters, an ice cream window, and a saltwater pool, all a short walk from the funky galleries and Friday street parties downtown. Pay the pier toll to walk out past the anglers for the long view back at the surf, the swimmers, and the crowd.

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Beaches

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, FL · Palm Beaches

This is the rare South Florida beach town you can walk end to end in flip-flops, where Anglin's Pier juts off the sand at the foot of Commercial Boulevard and the whole place orbits a short, sunny strip of cafes like the Aruba Beach Cafe. Drop your towel among the umbrellas and you are a hundred yards from the first ledge of a three-tier coral reef, close enough that snorkelers and shore divers just wade in from the beach instead of chartering a boat. Come morning the sand fills with sunbathers and the surf rolls in clear over the rocks, and by lunch the SeaSide tables are loud with people who walked over barefoot.

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