6 Most Quaint Small Towns on Florida's Emerald Coast

The Emerald Coast runs for about 100 miles along Florida's panhandle, from Pensacola Bay east to Panama City Beach, and the white-quartz sand and clear green water are what draw most of the traffic. Around those beaches, though, are six small towns that each carry the trip in a different direction. One was built from scratch in the 1980s and ended up doubling as the set for The Truman Show. One bills itself as the "world's luckiest fishing village" and has the deep-sea charter boats to back it up. One is inland and built around an Air Force base. The rest split between low-key family beaches, party-season boardwalks, and a Caribbean-style resort village from the mid-1990s. Here are six worth pulling off Highway 98 for.

Seaside

Seaside is the planned New Urbanist resort town that stood in for the fictional town in The Truman Show, and visiting now feels exactly the way the movie made it look. Pastel cottages with white picket fences sit on narrow brick streets, and the central lawn opens straight onto the Gulf. Developer Robert Davis broke ground in 1981 on the 80-acre site along Scenic Highway 30A, and the result is one of the most intentionally designed beach towns in America. Pull up a chair on the second floor at Bud and Alley's for the sunset, browse the airstream food trucks parked along the central square, or just walk the pavilions out to the water. Seaside is small, walkable, and unmistakable.

Crestview

Crestview is the inland one, the seat of Okaloosa County, about 25 miles north of Destin, and best known as a gateway to Eglin Air Force Base. The town's name comes from its location on a high ridge between the Shoal and Yellow rivers, which is also why it ended up on the Florida Main Street program for its preserved downtown. The Emerald Coast Zoo on the south side of town runs a small but well-kept collection of big cats, primates, and rescue animals. Downtown along Main Street still has the kind of small storefronts the rest of the panhandle has mostly lost to strip malls.

Destin

Destin calls itself the world's luckiest fishing village, and it can back the claim up: the deep-water access through Destin Pass means charter boats can reach 100-fathom water inside an hour, and the town's October rodeo is the longest-running deep-sea fishing tournament in the country. Beyond the harbor, Destin runs the standard Emerald Coast slate. HarborWalk Village handles the boardwalk crowd. Henderson Beach State Park covers about a mile of undeveloped sand at the east end of town. Several signature golf courses sit a few miles inland. The waterfront restaurants tend to be packed, book ahead in season.

Panama City Beach

Panama City Beach has 27 miles of beachfront and a reputation as one of the country's bigger spring break destinations, but the off-season trip is a different town. St. Andrews State Park covers more than 1,200 acres on the east end with two fishing piers, two jetties, and the Shell Island ferry across the pass. Conservation Park, on the north side, has roughly 24 miles of trails through pine flatwoods and cypress wetlands. Pier Park is the open-air shopping and dining anchor on the west end. Come outside of March and April, and the beaches feel almost private.

Fort Walton Beach

Fort Walton Beach sits on Choctawhatchee Bay just west of Destin, and the centerpiece of its downtown is the Fort Walton Temple Mound, a 12-foot platform mound built around 850 CE by the Pensacola culture, a regional variant of the Mississippian culture. Successive leaders added layers over centuries, and the site was used until roughly 1500 CE. The Indian Temple Mound Museum next door holds one of the larger ceramic collections from that culture in the Southeast. Beachgoers cross the bridge to Okaloosa Island for the Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park and the public-access stretch of beach. The Eglin range on the north side opens parts of itself to public hunting, fishing, and hiking through a permit system. There is plenty to do here without the Destin pricing.

Rosemary Beach

Rosemary Beach is the unincorporated community at the east end of 30A, founded in 1995 and built in a style that pulls from St. Augustine, the West Indies, and the French Quarter. The architecture is the draw: dark stucco, deep verandas, and brick walking paths threading through courtyards. Restaurant Paradis, La Crema, and Edward's all sit within the central square, and the rooftop bar at the Pearl Hotel has the best sunset view on this stretch of coast. Rosemary is intentionally smaller and quieter than Seaside three miles west, and the people who come here tend to come back.

The Emerald Coast is six different trips strung along one stretch of Highway 98. Pick the one that fits the trip you actually want to take, whether that's a planned-from-scratch resort, a deep-sea harbor, a family beach with a state park, a Mississippian temple mound, an inland gateway town, or a Caribbean-style village from 1995. The rest of the coast is twenty minutes down the road when you're done.