and
 

and good shrimp & grits

Daytona Beach - especially if you want to make it a day trip. A shorter drive. Park on the beach or at Ocean Deck restaurant's valet service (free - just a tip); walk or sit on the beautiful beach; go inside the Bandshell mall area; eat at Joe's Crab Shack or Hard Rock or many other good choices. Also there's a good mall there - Volusia Mall. It's a frequent day trip for us - or sometimes we stay overnight. Hilton, Hard Rock, and many other nice hotel choices. We love the gulf side too but Daytona is our go-to.

Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic (2 hours) and Mansota Key (2/1/2 hours) on the Gulf side. Cocoa Beach, excellent restaurants, good surf (Surfing tournaments)home of Ron Jon’s surf shop. “i dream of Jeannie” filmed on Cocoa Beach if you’re old enough to remember that sitcom. You might also get to watch a space launch while at Cocoa Beach. Port Canaveral with restaurants and cruise ships are right there by Cocoa Beach. Kill two birds with one trip!
If you are looking for an old Florida Secluded beach with fewer people then Manasoda Key is for you. Some nice Ma Pa restaurants. Shark tooth capital stretches from Venice beach down to Manasoda key Beach.

Our go to is Playalinda Beach on the Canaveral National Seashore. There are 13 parking lots and we like the area of lots 8-11. Rumor has it that at the very end of the beach past lot 13 it’s a nude beach, but we have never been there, we are too friggin old for that. The only thing we don’t like about Playalinda is that it’s a national seashore beach and they won’t accept our senior citizen America The Beautiful lifetime pass, which seems to be accepted at all other national parks and seashore beaches, including all national seashore beaches on Cape Cod?

We have done mini-vacation on the Gulf side and the Ocean side. We prefer the Gulf side. We love going to N. Redington Beach, Madeira Beach, Treasure Island area. There are a lot of great places to eat, beaches are great with white sand, and easier parking than on the Ocean side. But, we always have free parking wherever we stay. I would try the Gulf side first.

SHHHH ..... keep it a secret !

Flagler. It's not busy or crowded, at least during the summer when I've been there. I don't know about accommodations though. I don't think there's a ton of restaurants either. It's very much just a beach as far as I can tell. But that's what I like about it.

Hilton Head

When overseas experienced some nude beaches/spas. There are very few people I want to see in that state of undress.

Cocoa Beach is easy to get to, and was well managed/policed when we were there. And yes, space launch is a bonus.

Sun of a :bigbow:

We are frequent beach goers (possibly because we are Fl natives from S. Fl so miss being right at the beach). We have so many favs, each for different reasons, go to all that have been mentioned on here. Really agree about Andy Romano on the Atlantic, but since we go so often, we find the quick trip over to Honeymoon on the gulf is our go-to. It's certainly not Florida's most beautiful or famous, but, it's close...LOL.. and perfectly acceptable to us. We sometimes go to Jetty just to watch the cruise ships (or rocket ships...LOL !) because of the variety of choices for a nice dinner after the beach in such close proximity. I say, if you are relatively new to Florida, explore ALL of them mentioned in this post.

Siesta Key

Siesta Key in Sarasota.
We lived in Tampa for many years and this was our favorite.

One beach I would suggest passing on is Howard Beach Park in Tarpon Springs. It is located in a residential area and is difficult to drive to. Clearwater Beach or Honeymoon Island might be a bit further, but an easier drive.

Yes! Also Indian Rocks beach....