Yahoo Travel selects Mexico Beach as a Great American Beach Town

Within the last week, the 3.1-mile long seaside community of Mexico Beach has learned that it was selected as a Great American Beach Town by Yahoo Travel and as a Top 10 Gulf Coast Town by Gulfscapes Magazine.

“We learned about this Yahoo.com article and the calls really started coming in from everywhere. Last week over half of our inquiries were from that story,” said Cathey Parker Hobbs, a board member for the Mexico Beach Community Development Council.

On Tuesday, June 14, Yahoo Travel published a selection of 11 Great American Beach Towns in a story that read:

“Enough with your fancy remote beaches. The Maldives? St. Tropez? With the economy what it is, we'll be lucky to get to the next state on a $73 tank of gas. We want close. We want old- fashioned. We want a town where we can park the car, drag a beach chair and a book to the sand, and then shuffle down the boardwalk in our flip-flops for fried clams and an icy-cold can of beer: a place with fireworks, friendly locals, and sticky scoop shops. So we dug up 11 great American seaside escapes, from classic fun-in-the-sun California to New England colonial charm. Because when it comes to precious summer weekends in the sun, there's no place like home.”

Go to travel.yahoo.com to see the full article.

The article’s author, Sarah Tuff, said of Mexico Beach, “Never heard of Mexico Beach? Exactly. South of Destin, on the Florida Panhandle, the 1,200 residents have avoided high-rises, strip malls, and theme parks like the plague, keeping their low-slung town to themselves. The ‘government’ is a five-person council that's put the kibosh on anything taller than 48 feet, and the focus is on small-town fun, with gumbo cook-offs, kingfish tournaments, and fireworks fundraisers.”

Hobbs agreed, adding, “This is a place where I was raised, my children were raised and now my grandchildren. It’s a wonderful place with beautiful beaches. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Mexico Beach was the only Florida beach selected among others including Santa Cruz, CA, Coral Bay, Virgin Islands, Newport, Rhode Island and Folly Beach, SC.

On Thursday, June 16, Gulfscapes, the premier Gulf Coast lifestyle magazine, announced the winners in its 2011 Voters' Choice Best Gulf Coast Town Contest.

Mexico Beach was ranked No. 7 by readers. Pensacola was ranked at the top of the list of 10 which included four Florida beaches made the ranking including Destin and Naples.

CDC board member, Sandie Yarbrough, said, “12 years ago, my husband and I first saw Mexico Beach and we knew this was a place that we wanted to call home.”

More information and photos are available at www.mexico-beach.com