VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA Another family favourite, Virginia Beach sprawls over 35 miles of golden sands on Virginia’s Atlantic coast where it meets Chesapeake Bay – making it the longest pleasure beach in the world. The city’s Oceanfront Beach has a three-mile boardwalk that can be explored on rental bikes. A statue of King Neptune presides over Neptune’s Park, where free rock and classical concerts take place in summer. CALADESI ISLAND STATE PARK, DUNEDIN, FLORIDA The Gulf Coast island’s three-mile-long, white-sand beach is reached by a 20-minute pedestrian ferry ride from a dock on Honeymoon Island State Park at the end of the Dunedin Causeway. Besides its beach, the 650-acre island has hiking trails that wend through a mangrove forest. COAST GUARD BEACH, CAPE COD, MASSACHUSETTS This beach at the southern end of the Cape Cod National Seashore is reputed to have been where Pilgrims’ ship Mayflower first made landfall in November 1620, when it got temporarily stuck on shallow shoals before floating free and continuing its voyage to Plymouth Rock. A prime swimming beach with soft sands flanked by high sand dunes, it is also popular for surfing and boogie boarding. CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, CALIFORNIA This quaint and quirky town that once had Clint Eastwood as its mayor boasts the wide and sandy Carmel Sunset Beach at the end of Ocean Avenue. Visitors can explore the avenue's boutiques, restaurants and art galleries and visit neighbouring Carmel Beach or Carmel River State Beach. PICTUREDMain image: Duke Kahanamoku Beach, Oahu, Hawaii. Above: Kite flying at Jockey's Ridge State, Outer Banks, North Carolina. Below: Sunrise view next to the 14th Street fishing pier in Virginia Beach, Virginia; Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock from Highway 101 viewpoint on the northern Oregon Coast; Caladesi Island, designated one of the top five beaches in the U.S. by Dr. Stephen Leatherman, AKA Dr Beach Puerto Rico’s La Chiva Beach, on the south coast in Vieques, is known as "Blue Beach" for the turquoise waters lapping its sands BEACH LIFE VISIT ST. PETERSBURG/CLEARWATER HAWAII TOURISM AUTHORITY/TOR JOHNSON VISITNC.COM visitusa.org.uk 41
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