Ok, you want a urban beach? How about Santa Teresa Gallura in Sardinia? http://www.summervacanze.it/userImg/Territorio/Santa-Teresa-Gallura-Rena-Bianca.jpg
Fantastic. I love Carmel. The water is a bit cool that far north, however. I would like to nominate this one. The beach itself is nothing special, but the scenery 5-10 times a day is pretty awesome.
Never understood what is so great about the beaches in the New York City area. Yes there is water and sand, but there is nothing spectacular about them in terms of scenery, waves, people, snorkeling, etc.
IIRC some of the beaches around the Hamptons are top ranked and the Jersey shore has some good ones (Cape May, the Wildwoods).
pretty good. sand fine and white, nice sunsets, good family crowd and an excellent sand castle contest every year. but my favorite is lovers' point just over the hill in pacific grove. nothing tremendous, nothing cool, nothing spectacular. just nice. cozy. friendly. my kind of place. when i was a boy they had glass-bottom boats at the little pier in the middle.
Top-ranked by who? People that never leave the NYC area? Some of them charge people a daily fee (~$12) just for walking on the sand.
Lots of best of lists include the Hamptons. It may be just as much for the star cache. But there's a reason why stars buy $50M mansions there. It's a beautiful part of L.I. http://www.drbeach.org/top10beaches.html http://www.travelchannel.com/interests/beaches/articles/top-10-us-beaches
And I think an over-riding reason is that there are way more filthy rich people in NYC than just about anywhere else. Hawaii could be way nicer, but not exactly easily accessible to most rich people living in NYC. The density of people in NYC also makes a weekend get-away place high on people's priority list. Looked at the picture in the link you provided (Main Beach - #3 in the country) and it does absolutely nothing for me. But maybe its just me... the one in CA a couple of posts up looks way prettier, for instance.
Clearwater Beach, Florida Clearwater Beach has lured countless families and couples to its broad, sandy shores and beachfront hotels. Spread along a narrow, 3-mile stretch of the Pinellas Peninsula on the Gulf Coast, Clearwater Beach straddles the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the west, and tranquil Tampa Bay to the east. Visitors enjoy sunbathing on white sandy beaches, diving into a game of beach volleyball, renting fishing boats, taking a dolphin-watching cruise, parasailing or heading to a mainland museum or aquarium. That is the best beach I have been to recently.
For the East Coast, LI has some nice beaches. Cape Cod, the Outer Banks, Florida are probably tops for scenic beauty. CA water is too friggin' cold, even for East Coasters.
I've been at that beach on St Maarten. Watched a middle school aged child literally get blown into the water by the jet exhaust of a plane readying itself for take-off (the kid got out of the water and came back for more, of course).
Thanks! I returned from my trip to CA and I couldnt enjoy any beach. In Carmel the weather was very cold so it was impossible, the beach looked nice and clean. I visited other beaches in Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, La Jolla and Pismo Beach (we did the CA 1 roadtrip from San Francisco to LA, Big Sur was amazing), the weather was way better but the little time that we had didnt let us to get in the water. The one in Santa Monica was the one that I liked the most. We tried to go to Venice beach but it was very full and the town was ugly.
i wish i had pointed out that on the monterey peninsula and SF, in fact at almost everywhere in northern california except for santa cruz, the beach scene is more sweatshirt and shorts than all-out speedo tanning. the water is always bracing and the beach itself can be too. on the peninsula, like in SF, the weather can be better in winter than in the middle of summer, the best months tending to be september and october. that's another reason why lovers' point has always been my Lieblingsstrand: the point itself has a tiny microclimate (or so i always convinced myself) that gives it a handful more fogless summer days than the rest of PG* and above all the beach is perfectly sheltered from the wind and always liveable. *pacific grove, also referred to as le nombril du monde.
That Saba landing really doesn't look any worse (maybe less so) than the landing on St. Barths.... .....which, btw, has beautiful beaches.
For actual swimming I second Clearwater beach. For scenery, I believe it was sunset beach? Near watsonville, ca. Strawberry fields right up to the beach. Cliffs. Hmmmm pretty.
sunset and zmudowski are very similar to me, and at least when i was a local lad their attraction was that they were always nearly empty, with low police pressure thus bonfires, beer and camping were all cool. and the sunsets were as gorgeous as any in the area. and good surfcasting which is what i generally went there for.