Is Destin the Best Place to Live on the Emerald Coast

So, you're moving here to the Emerald Coast and you're wondering, where the heck should I move to? Well, in this video, we're going to determine whether Destin, Florida is the best place on the Emerald Coast.

Alright. So, is Destin the best place to live on the Emerald Coast? Well, that depends. It depends on what you're looking for. What we will do is start to go into those specific areas and reasons why we move here. But let's kind of talk about the other places. We talk about the Emerald Coast. The Emerald Coast stretches out to Pensacola all the way out to Panama City and due North. It's all here in Northwest Florida.

So, Let's talk about that. What do you want to do? So, if you want to go to a medium sized city feel, my suggestion is to go to Pensacola. If you’re looking to go more towards a smaller city with a budget beach lifestyle, I would also suggest Panama City or Panama City Beach. Why do I say it that way? If you remember decades ago and even more recent than that, Panama City Beach was a big area for spring break. And, most of that's kind of dissipated since the craziness back then, but certain portions of it stay. So, take it or leave it how you want, there's a certain feel that you get when you go there. Moving on, we do have luxury beach style. If you're looking for those, the areas off of 30A are really, really great. You know, you got Seaside, Rosemary Beach, Watercolors, all throughout the different area is definitely going to have that awesome feel to it. And if you want to go to Florida and you want more of a country lifestyle. Yeah, that exists. There's actually lots of that around here. You can look around certain areas like Defuniak Springs or in different kind of subsets in the different areas where you have lots of land, lots of wooded area, and of course, all the wonderful weather that comes with that. Alright.

So, what makes Destin so special? Why do we decide to make an entire video on this? Well, I'll give you a little backstory on me. So, when I did, originally, I'm from New York. Alright. And, I joined the military and kind of hopped around for many, many, many years. And as I was doing so, I got to stop in one of these places at Eglin Air Force Base, which is here in the Destin-Fort Walton Beach area. By far of all the places that I traveled around the world and here in country, this one was my favorite. So, after I moved out, went up to upstate New York and flew for a couple of years there, I eventually came back down here because this is the area that I wanted to live in. Why? Well, there's five differentiating factors between all the other places on the Emerald Coast. Now, things I'm not going to mention on here are the great weather, beautiful beaches, you know, anything that you would normally expect here in Northwest Florida. So, what makes these actually different between the rest? Well, let's jump into.

1. COMMUNITY

So, first and foremost is the community. The community here is a mix of military because there's five military installations around us. Those are your veterans like myself, and it's a good mix of happy vacationers. That's one thing about being in a vacation town. There's not a lot of angry people. How are you going to be angry on vacation? So, people choose to be happy around here and it really kind of just gets into the community especially even at the peak of tourist season. We're also in the south ish, I guess you could say that, we are south of Alabama. Some people call us lower Alabama. Call us what you will. We have a good time here. But because of that, we do have a mixture of that southern hospitality that does kind of mix into this community. Match that with the respect of the military, military veterans. It's just a great community of people to be around, very understanding and knowledgeable. That being said, with all the different bases around, it's very military friendly. The Eglin Air Force Base is a huge contributor to the economy here in our area outside of hospitality that comes in from vacationers and of course, medical.

2. BOATING

Moving on, we have number two, which is the boating. The boating in Destin is world class. Mainly because you have not only the jetties and everything else that's around into the gulf, but you have Choctaw Bay. Technically it's called Choctawhachee, but I can barely pronounce it, so that's why we go with Choctaw. I got called out in another video. However, it also has different communities in Destin like Regatta Bay. Was actually featured in boating magazines. It's one of the top places in Florida to go boating. Actually, one of the top places here in the United States. Why is that? To kind of expand upon that, there's great fishing. Deep sea fishing, offshore fishing. There's tons of water activities as you would expect here in a beach town, but you have good snorkeling, scuba. There's tours, dolphin tours or just cruises. There was even a couple of different dinner cruises that you can get out into the bay. And of course, you can't talk about Destin in the water without talking about Crab Island. I mean Crab Island's the best party in town. You just need a boat to get out there. So, if you can befriend a person with a boat or rent to pontoon and just get out there, it is the best time if you like to be around happy people, a couple of delicious libations, and just good music and a good crowd.

3. BEACHES

Number three is the amazing beaches. Alright. I said I wasn't going to mention it, but I did it anyway. Why? There's just something different about this area. You have Henderson Park, Henderson Beach Park, whatever, that has these different areas of untouched beach even in the heart of Destin. So, you still kind of get that same feel that you may get with a little bit more of the rural undeveloped areas. You also have Norriego Point. Now funny enough, we had a hurricane that came in. It was a hurricane Ivan that rolled through and it had such force that in Norriego Point, which is a peninsula of the Destin Bay, actually got washed away. But due to the BP spill that had happen many years prior to that. They paid that out and it was a good lump sum. They actually came out and dredged the other side of the bridge outside of Crab Island and brought all that sand back and actually built the land back out at Norriego Point. So, it's actually a public beach park that you can go out to. They have some breakers in there too, so the water isn't so bad, so you can kind of get into it. It's not as choppy. It's just a really nice place. The parking over there is kind of terrible, but that's across Destin anyway. You also have James Lee Beach, which is the Destin Crab Shack is out that way, and that's a great place to go. It's in the Crystal Beach neighborhood. It's obviously south end of that off the gulf. But they have parking, they have different pavilions, first come first serve. It's golf cart accessible. There's lots of great things about that specific community. Also, Okaloosa Island. Now, I know technically, it's in Fort Walton Beach, but it is six miles of just untouched beach and is flanked by dooms on one side that if you want to go out and just detach from structures of everything else, you have that opportunity. And can walk for miles and miles and miles down these beaches that aren't developed. It's just, it's phenomenal. Alright.

4. LOTS OF THINGS TO DO

Going to number four, there's lots of things to do. Now, there's good amount of things to do in the areas that I described before. But, if you're looking to go do stuff, this is the place to go. Now, most of the people that live in the surrounding areas of Destin, we're talking Fort Walton, I mean, up to Crestview, Mary Esther, Niceville. We all when we want to do something, typically go into Destin because that's where all this stuff is. You've got shopping. Of course, you got the Destin Commons, which is a big outdoor mall. Actually, there's a separate video on this to go ahead and check out if you want to. Shameless plug. There's plenty of boutique shops all throughout, you know, the Harbor Walk, all through the main drag of Destin. You know, on Highway 98. And you also have the Outlet mall. Again, it's not technically in Destin, it's in Miramar Beach. But, there's tons of shopping out in the Outlet malls there too. Now, great restaurants. Again, some of my favorite restaurants are out there in Destin. So, it's really great to have that come centrally located. Of course, you have the Harborwalk, which is this long walk that you've got you know, stuff for the kids to do, restaurants, plenty of watering holes, places to drink. Obviously, on the harbor for different things and events that you want to go out to. It's just, it's really nice to be able to go out there. And, there's a live music typically most of the weekends, sometimes during the weeknights depending on the time of year. And of course, there's plenty of places to go out and look at the ocean or be pretty darn close to it and have a delicious libation, have a delicious drink or whatever is that you'd like to go. There's just tons of different places to keep this active to whatever your style of living is.

5. DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES 

And number five, and the last one I have for you is that, there's different communities for all different types of lifestyles. I think that's the biggest thing that makes it different. So, if you're looking for more of an affluent feel gated community, that's got all these different sorts of amenities. One of the more ritzier places that you can go is Kelly Plantation. You also have Regatta Bay, kind of has a similar experience to it. All these different ones from single families, to condos, to townhomes, they have all the different experiences within those communities, which I think is really nice. Not only that, yeah, venture a little bit further south and well east, in this case, if you're looking at Kelly Plantation, you also have the Crystal Beach Community area. Right? And that's where James Lee Beach is and all that. So, you have a good mix of homes, single family homes, and town homes, condos that are sitting down there. And it’s mostly kind of set up for vacationers, maybe those VRBOs. And there's also private communities within that. That say somebody wants to come out and, you know, still live in the area and have it gated off from all the rest of the vacationers that does exist. And you could still be a golf cart drive away from the beautiful waters down there in the gulf or just take out a walk, whatever, whatever gets you out. Alright. Not only that, but we also have Old Destin. Older Destin is going to be more of a affordable housing. There's not a lot of consistency. There's not a lot of housing consistency around here. Anywhere is very eclectic. But it's more suburbia. It's what you would expect if you're driving around in an older community. The thing that makes this different is that, the city of Destin has zoned out certain areas so people can't rent out their homes for short term rentals. So, certain areas, mainly east Destin won't allow those areas to have short term rentals, which should keep the community the same and more for day-to-day life. And of course, last but not least, there's the condo communities, who could forget that for all the vacationers and people that just want to live the condo and vacation lifestyle, kind of the minimalist. But there's tons and tons of vacation rental condos, regular condos. You also have condos on the bayside as well that may not offer short term rentals may be more residential set. But, all different types of communities, all existing in that small area of Destin, which makes it possibly the best place to live here on the Emerald Coast.

So, that's all I have for you for, is Destin the place to live here on the Emerald, the best place to live here on the Emerald Coast. If you have any questions about anything that I mentioned on this video, please feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com