The Top 10 Most Instagrammable Floridian Beaches, According to a New Study
The Sunshine State boasts 1,300 miles of coastline with palm trees gently swaying and crystalline turquoise waters meant for sun-seekers and selfie lovers alike. The best part? Its tropical climate is a year-round affair—so you can bet there'll be no shortage of postcard-worthy shorelines, neon-pink sunsets, and hidden beach gems for the 'gram.
Narrowing down the most Instagram-worthy spots, Westgate Cocoa Beach Resort has done the legwork by analyzing over 550 beaches Floridian, tallying the total number of posts linked to the three most popular hashtags for each beach, to bring you the top 10 beach spots.
Expect a little bit of everything—from the powdery-white sands in the Panhandle, majestic sunrises on the Atlantic coasts, to crystal blue waters in the Keys you wouldn't even want to use an Instagram filter.
With over 9.08 million hashtags racked on Instagram alone, South Beach is the crown jewel of Miami's coastline. It's a glamorous, sun-soaked paradise buzzing with celebrity sightings, luxury hotels, and nightlife. Its vibrant Art Deco architecture also makes for an appealing Instagram background reel if you're done snapping photos at Lummus Park, Nikki Beach, or along Ocean Drive.
Palm Beach is known for its laid-back coastal vibes sprinkled with a bit of luxury. Other than its gorgeous beaches and palm-lined streets, it's also home to historic mansions and upscale shopping districts including Worth Avenue (Florida's Rodeo Drive), ideal for those who like to shop after relaxing at the beach.
An award-winning beach spot on Florida's Gulf Coast known for its calm, pristine waters and unreal sunset views. It's the place to be for opacarophiles (sunset lovers) trying to catch the golden-hour views. Make sure to check out Pier 60's sunset festival filled with local artisans and street performers daily or hop on a dolphin-watching cruise if you're feeling adventurous.
If an action-filled adventure by the beach is more your thing, then Daytona Beach on Florida's Atlantic coast won't disappoint. The wide beach, which also hosts free summer concerts, is popular due to its hard-packed sand that you can drive on along with the legendary pier and boardwalk lined with rides and arcades. Motorsports fans will also have the Daytona 500 NASCAR race to look forward to come February.
Panama City Beach is a Gulf Coast dream for beach and nature lovers alike. Its stunning emerald-green waters are always packed with exciting water-based activities; you can try snorkeling, parasailing, and even paddleboarding with dolphins.
One of the popular spots is St. Andrews Park which features 1.5 miles of white sand beach, nature trails, and dunes, while the Pier Park is everyone's go-to for dining and shopping.
Known for its underrated beauty and panoramic ocean views, Pompano Beach is South Florida's hidden gem worth visiting. It has fewer crowds than its neighboring counterparts so you'll get to enjoy the beach all on your own (or with family) along with its golden stretch of sand and refreshing ocean breeze.
The city's artificial reef program also created a vibrant marine life which makes the beach a prime spot for snorkeling and diving.
If you've come for ocean views with a rooftop party on the side, Sunny Isles Beach is Florida's beachfront paradise. It offers a blend of upscale resorts, pristine beaches, and world-class dining. Nicknamed the 'Riviera of Florida,' Sunny Isle's iconic Newport Fishing Pier provides an Instagram-worthy backdrop while its clear blue waters will make you want to kayak and paddleboard 'til sunset.
Another beach gem on the list with a laid-back coastal charm is Vero Beach—no rowdy crowds and high-rises—ideal for when you just want peaceful long walks and picnics. It's just you, the gentle waves, the cool breeze of the Atlantic, and the long stretch of pristine beach. It's also a prime spot for sea turtles to nest and is home to the Vero Beach Museum of Art and McKee Botanical Garden.
Read more: 45 Amazing Things to Do in Florida Other Than Disney
Those looking for a crowd-free and scenic escape will find Deerfield Beach an instant Instagram favorite. It features the award-winning Blue Wave beach certified by the Clean Beach Council so you can be assured of clean waters, shorelines, and endless stretches of soft sand. For Insta-worthy ocean and sunrise views, head on to the International Fishing Pier or try some water park wakeboarding fun at Ski Rixen USA.
Read more: 12 of the Most Beautiful Beaches in the World as Voted by Frequent Travelers
A surfer's paradise and home to legendary surfing pro Kelly Slater, Cocoa Beach is popular for its laid-back vibes and iconic waves for surfin' up. The year-round mild (but short) winter and hot summer are always accompanied by a steady ocean breeze—ideal for catching waves or for oceanfront dining at Westgate Cocoa Beach Pier. Nearby is the Kennedy Space Center which is also a must-visit for space lovers.
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USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Social media users are proving why nothing beats a Jet2 holiday. What's that?
As of late, the internet seems to be in agreement on one thing: nothing beats a Jet2 holiday. A 2024 television ad for the British airline Jet2 recently resurfaced on TikTok, sparking thousands of users to share their own videos with the audio. Set to the tune of Jess Glynne's 2015 song "Hold My Hand," the ad cheerily declares, "nothing beats a Jet2 holiday." It goes on to detail a discount of £50 per person on flights — which totals £200 for a family of four, the ad points out. The clip has been used over a million times across several audios available on TikTok, with users superimposing the sound over funny moments. Even the voice actor behind the viral audio and the airline itself have weighed in on the trend. Here's what to know. What is a Jet2 holiday? Jet2 is a British airline company. In 2024, it released a television ad titled "nothing beats a Jet2 holiday." The original clip, which has more than two million views on YouTube, promotes a discount on flights using a series of clips of a family on vacation. In British English, it is common to refer to a vacation as a holiday. Voice behind 'nothing beats a Jet2 holiday' weighs in on virality Zoë Lister, a voice actor from the United Kingdom who narrates the viral clip, has leaned into the success on social media. "Chances are if you have a social media account and you live in 2025 on planet Earth, you've heard my voice," she said in an Instagram video this month. Lister said since the audio gained popularity, she has received messages from people all around the world asking about Jet2 holidays. On July 21, Lister and Glynne, the artist whose song is used in the original ad, met up for an appearance on air for Capital UK radio station. "One more thing off our 2025 bucket list" Jet2 commented on the post. 'Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday' trend explained TikTok users have taken over the sound for funny moments that exude the opposite of vacation relaxation — from clips of unwanted rodents and creepy crawlers to activities like axe throwing and surfing gone wrong. Here's a look at some of the videos. Melina Khan is a national trending reporter for USA TODAY. She can be reached at
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Don Soffer, who sketched an idea for Aventura on a napkin, dies at 92
Aventura began as a sketch on a napkin. Now it's home to the biggest mall in Florida, one of the five biggest in the country. Aventura is also one of Miami-Dade's poshest — and busiest — neighborhoods. Real estate mogul Don Soffer, developer of Florida's Aventura Mall and the city's 'godfather,' died Sunday morning at 92, his son-in-law Craig Robins and The Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center said. The synagogue was founded by Soffer. In a statement to CBS News Miami, the city of Aventura called Soffer a 'visionary developer and philanthropist whose leadership and foresight transformed South Florida swampland into the thriving, vibrant community we proudly call home.' The condo community, once an unincorporated slice of Miami-Dade, became a city 30 years ago. 'Mr. Soffer's legacy is etched into the very foundation of Aventura,' the city said in a statement. 'His development of what would become the city's heart — from Aventura Mall to residential communities and the Turnberry golf course and brand — laid the groundwork for Aventura's incorporation in 1995. Without his vision, the city of Aventura would not exist as we know it today.' In addition, there's a charter school, Don Soffer Aventura High School that was named after him in 2019; the Don Soffer Clinical Research Center, a part of UHealth, the University of Miami Health System on Northwest 14th Street in Miami; and a three-mile Don Soffer Exercise Trail on West Country Club Drive that rings Aventura. In June, Aventura Mall, under the stewardship of his daughter Jackie Soffer, chairman and CEO of Turnberry Associates, the real estate development group that has principle ownership of Aventura Mall, was voted the best in the country in USA's Readers Choice Awards. MORE: This Miami area mall was just voted best in the country. Here's why it's No. 1 Real estate developer Robins, who developed Miami's Design District and co-founded Design Miami, is married to Jackie Soffer. He called the family patriarch his 'hero' in an Instagram post on Sunday. 'He had the vision and fortitude to take swamp land and transform it into a city,' Robins wrote. 'Following such a dynamic and visionary parent can be especially hard for their successors. Jackie has managed to brilliantly take what Don did and carry it forward.' Soffer was a 'builder of community.' He turned Aventura into 'a model city that continues to grow and flourish. Though Don Soffer never held a formal title in Aventura's government, he was, in every sense, the godfather of the city,' the City of Aventura told CBS News Miami. Famous folks like tennis champ Jimmy Connors and his wife Patti Maguire Connors, John McEnroe and Princess Caroline once owned Aventura condos. Cirque du Soleil hosted its first big show in South Florida at Turnberry in 1989. Pop superstar Elton John, a frequent guest at Turnberry Isle in the 1980s, lit the torch for the venue's Whole Earth Run in 1986. Actors James Caan and 'Where the Boys Are' co-star George Hamilton dined with Soffer in Turnberry Isle. The Monkey Business Soffer's success also afforded him the opportunity to own a mega yacht. Alas, that yacht's name became infamous after the Miami Herald exposed a scandal concerning Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart in May 1987. Hart was aboard the Monkey Business yacht he'd leased from Soffer. So was his date Donna Rice. They weren't married. A photo of the pair — Hart clad in a white T shirt reading 'Monkey Business Crew' and Rice perched atop his lap — ran in the National Enquirer in June 1987, weeks after Hart ended his campaign. The Herald's reporting on the affair led Hart to suspend his campaign as a Democratic candidate in the 1988 presidential race. After the Coast Guard seized half a marijuana cigarette on The Monkey Business in June 1988 — no one said to whom the roach belonged but the feds were into 'zero tolerance' at the time of television's 'Miami Vice' — Soffer had had enough. 'I'm thinking very seriously of changing the name,' Soffer told a Miami Herald columnist in 1988. 'They handcuffed the crew and confined them to the fly bridge under armed guard. Then they came up and said, 'Look what we found.' They could have brought the thing on with them. They just wanted to see where Donna Rice and Gary Hart slept. If this hadn't been the Monkey Business, it never would have happened.' Soffer teased the new name for the Monkey Business could be 'The None of Your Business.' Instead, he sold the yacht. Building Aventura from a napkin sketch MORE: What did Aventura Mall look like when it opened four decades ago? See for yourself All of this fame, success and admiration from associates, friends and family stemmed from notes scribbled on a cocktail napkin. In the 1960s, the Pittsburgh Soffers, including Don, loved visiting Miami 'to golf, boat and swim in the ocean,' his family said. The Aventura and Turnberry neighborhood began when Soffer visited Northeast Miami-Dade with his father Harry Soffer, a Pittsburgh mall developer, in 1967. The father-son duo were scouting sites for a possible shopping mall. 'The first thought was to build a mall here,' said Soffer, then a principal of Turnberry Associates in a 1988 Miami Herald story. 'Most of the land was under water. I sketched out on a napkin what I thought would fit into this property beside the shopping center.' Soffer kept that napkin for years. More than 20 years after scribbling on it, and about 16 before Aventura Mall opened in 1983, and seven years before the city of Aventura was officially incorporated in 1995, Soffer told the Herald reporter in 1988 that he'd found the cocktail napkin. 'It's remarkable how close it is to the actual development,' Soffer said. Early life and education Donald Morley Soffer was born on Sept. 20, 1932, in Duquesne, Pennsylvania. In 1954, Soffer graduated from Brandeis University in Massachusetts with a bachelor of arts in economics. He attended Brandeis on a football scholarship. After graduation, Soffer weighed a few choices. He had an opportunity to join the San Francisco 49ers, the military or the family business. He chose the latter two options, his family said in an obituary. Soffer served in the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division, today known as the 'Screaming Eagles.' He then returned to nearby Pittsburgh and went into construction and real estate with his father to develop suburban shopping centers. Aventura means adventure In 1967, Soffer and his business partners co-led a groundbreaking deal to acquire 785 acres of swampland in Miami-Dade. He founded Turnberry Associates to realize that vision, his family said. Not everyone was on board. Environmentalists and controlled growth advocates didn't share Soffer's vision for the land. Through a friend, Soffer secured a five-minute meeting with then Florida Gov. Claude Kirk in Tallahassee. Soffer, his family said, often shared the story that he convinced Gov. Kirk that his idea to employ 4,000 people in a $100 million construction project to create a modern city where 100,000 people would visit daily was actually Kirk's own idea. 'That way, Kirk could pitch it to his cabinet and take full credit. That salesmanship sealed the deal,' his family wrote in his obituary. In 1969, the county approved Soffer's ambitious 23,900 condominium unit master plan. Over the 1970s and 1980s, Soffer and his business partners would go on to create what is now the City of Aventura, building everything from high-rises and golf resorts to libraries, fire stations and Aventura Mall. According to a January 2012 Biscayne Times article, local author and historian Seth Bramson said Soffer came up with the city's name after telling his father, who died in 1972 at 63, that developing the city would be an 'adventure.' Aventura is Spanish for adventure. Soffer expanded his footprint with other real estate projects like Turnberry Isle Resort and the purchase and restoration of Fontainebleau Miami Beach. Turnberry is currently led by his daughter Jackie Soffer, who used to lead it with her brother Jeffrey as co-chief executives before they split ownership in 2019. Jeffrey Soffer currently leads Fontainebleau Development and owns the Miami Beach Fontainebleau hotel and the Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Aventura Mall secured South Florida's first Macy's when it opened in 1983. The Northeast Miami-Dade mall, under his daughter's leadership, recently welcomed Florida's first Eataly Italian marketplace. Other Florida first recent arrivals include Massimo Dutti wardrobe store, the fashion boutique Cinq à Sept, Dolce Vita footwear and Kim Kardashian's Skims store. Philanthropy and honors Outside of construction and real estate, Soffer, who championed an outdoors lifestyle through frequent fishing, boating and camping excursions with his children, was a philanthropist. He donated $15 million to Brandeis University. He was given an honorary doctorate at Brandeis in 2023 and inducted into the Brandeis Athletcis Hall of Fame in 2009. Soffer also supported the University of Miami, Mount Sinai Medical Center and helped establish the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center in honor of his parents, Ida and Harry, as well as helping to build the New Hope orphanage in Haiti, his family said. His other contributions include City of Hope, Best Buddies, Breast Cancer Initiative and the Humane Society of Greater Miami. He received the Simon Wiesenthal Center Humanitarian Award in 2024. Survivors and services Soffer's survivors include his wife, Michele King Soffer; his sister Rita; children Marsha, Jackie, Jeffrey, Brooke, Rock and Abigail; 13 grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. His funeral service was held on Monday, July 21, in the Harry & Ida Soffer Sanctuary at the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center. Miami Herald news partner CBS News Miami contributed to this report.
New York Post
5 hours ago
- New York Post
Michelle Beadle gets over ugly SiriusXM split with epic vacation
Michelle Beadle might be manifesting her own travel show after her vacation in Croatia. The sports broadcaster, 49, who was fired from SiriusXM last month, shared a behind-the-scenes look at her trip Sunday in a social media clip, which highlighted sightseeing, sunbathing by the water and a boat ride. 'My Croatia Dump is here,' Beadle wrote on her Instagram. '(We really should come up with better terminology.) Until next time… Or I get a damn travel show…' Advertisement Beadle and Cody Decker of the 'Beadle and Decker' radio show parted ways with Sirius XM in June, as the network decided to replace their time slot with a show hosted by longtime ESPN anchor Stephen A. Smith. 6 Michelle Beadle sunbathing on vacation in Croatia after her Sirius XM show was replaced by Stephen A. Smith's new show. X/Michelle Beadle Advertisement At the time, Beadle said she felt 'blindsided' by the news of being replaced by Smith — her former ESPN colleague, whom she isn't a fan of. 6 Michelle Beadle sunbathing on vacation in Croatia. X/Michelle Beadle 6 Michelle Beadle enjoying her vacation in Croatia. X/Michelle Beadle 6 Michelle Beadle sunbathing on vacation in Croatia after parting ways with Sirius XM in June. X/Michelle Beadle Advertisement 'Welcome to the 'Lame Duck and Who Knew?' show here,' Beadle said at the time, as Decker yelled 'fired' in the background during their show. 'All I ask is to be treated with respect … Here we are, we're going to do our shows because we're contractually obligated to be here.' During an interview with Front Office Sports, Beadle doubled down on her comments and took shots at Smith. 'It's a reminder: We're just all pieces of s–t to someone. If you forgot, there it is,' Beadle said. ''The Hollywood Reporter' comes out — and there's his face. I was like, 'I should have known.' That was just kind of gross. I don't care that we're being replaced or what have you. It happens all the time. But a little respect would have been nice. Good Lord. I was totally blindsided. Just really embarrassed, to be honest.' Advertisement 6 Stephen A. Smith visits SiriusXM Studios on July 17, 2025 in New York City. Getty Images Beadle, who left ESPN in 2019, explained that she's been at odds with the 'First Take' host for years, dating back to 2014 when she called out Smith on social media for controversial comments made about domestic violence in the wake of ex-NFL player Ray Rice's violent assault on his now-wife. 'I don't respect him,' Beadle said of Smith. 'I don't respect his work. He doesn't like me. This goes back to the Ray Rice stuff. He made some really piggish comments on the air. I responded; he got suspended for like two weeks. I think that was sort of the beginning of the end for anything. 'I just don't respect him. I think he gets things wrong all the time. I'm not talking about opinions; those can never be wrong. But factually, when you spread yourself so thin, it's hard to be right. Not a fan.' 6 Michelle Beadle on the set of ESPN's 'NBA Countdown' in Los Angeles, CA on October 26, 2016. Scott Clarke / ESPN Images Beadle is the host of 'Run It Back' on FanDuel TV with former NBA players Chandler Parsons and Lou Williams. She also co-hosts the podcast 'Over the Top' with Peter Rosenberg on Wondery. Additionally, the former ESPN host is on select broadcasts for the San Antonio Spurs. Smith's new SiriusXM show will debut Sept. 2.
