Photo by Evan Nichols, licensed under CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Tampa Bay doesn’t have to settle for a decent local beach — it has one that Tripadvisor ranked the No. 2 best beach in the entire United States for 2026, and No. 1 in Florida. Clearwater Beach sits at the west end of Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard (State Road 60), with sugar-white sand and warm Gulf of Mexico water that regularly draws comparisons to the Caribbean — one travel writer put it plainly: “the colour of the water here is genuinely extraordinary. It belongs in the same conversation as any Caribbean beach.”
The sand itself earns its own praise. “The sand at Clearwater Beach is soft, fine, and blindingly white,” reads one editorial beach review. “It stays cool enough under your feet on all but the hottest afternoons.” Nearly 13,000 traveler reviews on Tripadvisor back up the reputation.
Access is free — there’s no entrance fee to the beach itself — and it’s genuinely well-maintained: the city monitors it with lifeguards year-round and cleans and rakes the sand daily. That combination of natural quality and consistent upkeep is a big part of why it keeps climbing national rankings rather than coasting on scenery alone.
The one real cost is parking. Public lots, including the 141-space Pier 60 lot, charge $3.50 per hour, generally running 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. (Sunday hours start later in some lots). Worth budgeting for if you’re planning a full beach day rather than a quick sunset stop.
And sunset is very much part of the draw here — Pier 60 hosts a nightly sunset celebration with street performers and vendors, a Clearwater tradition that turns the end of a beach day into its own event.
Free to visit, ranked among the best in the country, and five minutes from a sunset festival that happens every single night — Clearwater Beach earns the hype without needing much embellishment.
Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard (State Road 60), Clearwater, FL 33767.