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Destin / Henderson Beach State Park

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Destin / Henderson Beach State Park

Destin, FL · Panhandle

About

Right in the thick of Destin's high-rises sits a 6,000-foot stretch of coast the developers never got to, where 30-foot dunes feathered with sea oats roll down to sand so white and fine it squeaks underfoot. The quartz here washed down from the Appalachians over thousands of years, and against it the Gulf turns that improbable Destin emerald, shading from pale jade in the shallows to deep green where the bottom drops away. Walk the quarter-mile boardwalk out from the campground, stake a claim on the open beach, and you get the sugar sand and clear water without a condo wall at your back.

Highlights

Sugar-white quartz sand and emerald Gulf water30-foot sea-oat dunes, Destin's last coastal scrubQuarter-mile boardwalk to an undeveloped beachNature trail through dune and scrub habitat60-site campground tucked in the secondary dunes

Getting there

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The Best Florida Beaches20 places

The Best Florida Beaches

Florida has more coastline than any state but Alaska, and it spends it well. This is the definitive run: the sugar-white quartz of the Panhandle's Emerald Coast, the shell-strewn Gulf islands you reach by boat, the surf and skyline of the Atlantic, and the impossible turquoise of the Keys. Some you drive to and park; some take a ferry and a plan. All of them earn it. The best beaches in Florida, coast to coast.