If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you will know that my favorite beach in Florida is Destin. I’ve been to this beach many times over the years and it still wins, hands down, as the prettiest beaches in the South, in my opinion. Once you see that clear turquoise blue water and the sugar white sands, it’s hard to resist going back. I headed down last weekend with a girlfriend of mine, Beth, from Orlando.
We stayed in Edgewater beach condos right on the beach. The building is a unique shape and is built for maximum views of the water and pool areas. This shot was taken from the pool. We were on the 7th floor and I booked through VRBO for this unit. We were very happy here! You can see even better pics on that link.
It’s a great location in Destin, right across from the Silver Sands outlet mall with lots of shops and restaurants around.
The pool is tiered with 2 pools and we spent one day out here. We had 2 days of cloudy weather, a little rain, and one gorgeous sunny, perfect day, which we loved. I’ll share more pics later. This day was cloudy but still enjoyable weather. When the sun is out, the water looks spectacular.
My friend, Beth, from Orlando and I on the beach. She’s a Gator mom, her daughter is about to graduate from U of FL.
Funny story how Beth and I met. She grew up in Marietta and graduated from Wheeler High School. I graduated from Sprayberry. She’s about 4 years younger than me, but our families and paths have intersected in the past and we didn’t even know it. She wrote me an email back when I was renovating the house in 2012 and was coming up here to see her family. She wanted to come and help me paint, so she dropped by and we’ve been friends ever since. We just figured out this time, when she went with me to eat lunch with my parents, that her grandmother was in the same nursing home with one of my parents’ dear friends, which has been years ago now. Not only was Beth’s grandmother in the same nursing home, she was in the same room with our family friend and my mom met Beth’s mother and Aunt during the time they were both in that room. Small world, indeed! I had no idea until Beth mentioned names to my mother and my mother put it all together.
Beach chairs in the sand.
Pool time on the sunny day we had was just spectacular.
There is nothing like this beach. It gets me every time. The sugar white sand squeaks when you walk on it.
That water is really such a pretty emerald green/blue and that is why this stretch of the Gulf is called the Emerald Coast.
By far, it’s my favorite beach in Florida.
View from our balcony with my zoom lens.
Pulled back from the balcony view. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?
Off to the left of our building were 2 other really huge condo units. They can certainly house a lot of people in these high-rise condos.
On the beach side, we took some walks on the beach and captured this loveliness right next to Edgewater. You can stay in so many beautiful places in Destin, from condos to beach houses.
More beautiful beach houses.
I’ll give you a little peek of our condo unit, but the ones on their website are even better. I think it’s been newly remodeled with beautiful hardwood floors and natural and beachy furniture.
Dining table.
From the living room to the kitchen.
Kitchen, not a great pic, but very nice kitchen.
Mirrored wall in the living room.
Master bedroom with a great ocean view.
Yes, it is! Truer words have never been spoken.
Master bedroom view. There are shades on the windows that pull down to keep the early morning sun out.
The spacious balcony was perfect for early morning coffee and beach views. The weather was really pleasant and the sunny day we had was perfection.
I was so happy that my family was down there too. My sister and her hubby, along with Lauren and her family were down there for a whole week and their time overlapped with ours, so we had dinner with them the first night there.
Little Miss Parker is just so cute, I can hardly stand it. You can tell she enjoyed the berries she was eating and we took turns entertaining her outside at dinner. I’ll tell you more about the places we ate in another post. We got some great food down there and there is no shortage of good restaurants in Destin. I always get my fill of seafood.
My sister and family stayed at Waterscape in Ft. Walton Beach and it was a really neat place. Perfect water park for Parker to play in! We floated down that lazy river too.
Parker loved this place and it was so fun to watch this water baby. She is learning to swim and it’s so cute. She is not afraid of putting her head under the water.
While we were at their condo, we witnessed a late afternoon beach wedding, which was so fun.
Here comes the bride. They stayed out for awhile taking pics on the beach and enjoying the day. At least it didn’t rain on them.
I’ll be back to share more on Destin, including one of my old Atlanta friends, who has a beach house down there. It was so great to catch up with her after being out of touch for several years and visiting her beach house. I’ll be sharing it this Friday on my Feature Friday series. I’ll also share some shops and restaurants we went to.
And Beth and I shopped at a thriftstore while there and found 2 black dresses each, so we did a photoshoot for Fashion over 50 and Little Black Dresses that I think you’ll enjoy this week!
Hey friend,
You captured the beauty of Destin very well. Our vacation spot for 25 years and you were walking distance from the condominium we visited twice a year when our boys were young! Your post brought back wonderful memories of the squeaky sand and emerald waters. The sand is white from the quartz washed down out of the Appalachian Mountains by the rivers and into the Gulf by the Apalachicola River east of Destin. This white sand and the clear and usually calmer waters are why we chose the Gulf rather than the Atlantic for our beach vacations. Looks like you and Beth had such a great time together. She’s beautiful and I look forward to meeting her, another Marietta Girl! Thanks for sharing your adventures and introducing new and exciting locales to your readers.
Vic