Powder White Sand, Endless Sunshine & Family-Friendliness Tops Expert’s List. While on location in the St. Pete/Clearwater area last week filming several segments for his upcoming PBS show, The Travel Detective, renowned travel guru Peter Greenberg discovered the perfect getaway for holiday beach goers: Clearwater Beach, which he subsequently named to the top of his list of “Best Beaches in the U.S.” on CBS News This Morning last Saturday.
Named one of the state's most important birding sites by Audubon of Florida, this undeveloped barrier island is known for excellent shelling, sunbathing and bird watching. Shell Key Preserve was established to protect the island as a nesting site and continue to allow its use as a recreational destination. Numerous boats offer sightseeing trips to Shell Key's recreation area for sunbathing and dolphin watching. Efforts to manage this area resulted in the creation of the Florida Birding Festival every fall, the largest urban bird watching festival in the nation
“That sounds like a bad brochure, but it really is true,” he joked, before touching on the area’s other notable assets—including great fishing, family-friendliness and endless sunshine.
Thirty-five miles of white-sand, island beaches await visitors to the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area.
Greenberg’s nod to Clearwater Beach joins a long list of area accolades, including Clearwater being voted “Florida’s Best Beach Town” by USA Today readers, St. Pete Beach being named “#1 Beach in the U.S.” by TripAdvisor and Parents magazine naming Fort De Soto “America’s Best Family Beach.”
