I went during red tide last year (obviously didn't plan it that way)... got out of the car and immediately started coughing. Spent ~30 minutes on the beach one day until we couldn't stand the smell or coughing any longer. Walk down to the water and count the dead fish.

I'm sure it's nice outside of fish apocalypse season, even though I assume instead of a million dead fish, it's a million annoying people. :shrug:

FYP

Rosemary Beach area. Seaside is close. You can walk around the town centers, very family friendly.

It’s not as bad as others are saying. It’s typically a spot where people from Atlanta and the Deep South come for a long three day weekend for some beach time. If you go at a time when it’s not a holiday and it’s less crowded it’s not bad. I went with my family a week after Labor Day and had a good time.

Thats about all your choices based on your criteria. You can go to the Alabama beaches? There is just no good beaches between the panhandle and the St. Pete/Tampa area.

I gotta say, Gulf Shores, Alabama, is one of the prettier beaches I've ever seen.

Unless you like Branson vibes with 10x the traffic, don't do Destin. 30A isn't as bad (Rosemary Beach, Alys Beach, Grayton Beach, Seaside, etc..) but they've gotten increasingly crowded. Beaches are all white sand gorgeous in the area with "aquarium" clear waters on low surf days, but you might be dealing with junegrass or sargassum, depending on luck of the draw. That kind of sucks when it happens. Otherwise, they really are gorgeous beaches there.


St. George Island is fantastic, but it's kind of out of the way if you're headed to Orlando.

I’ve never been to Destin personally but I’ve known many midwesterners who have and none seemed to think it was a bad beach.

No offense or anything, but (I’m assuming) you’re coming from Missouri, Kansas or the like? Any Florida beach will be prettier than whatever you’ve got going on back home lol