You may have been coming to Panama City Beach on vacation since you were a little kid. Lots of people have. It’s one of the best things about the destination. People love it so much, they grow up and come back year-after-year with their own kids.

So you might think you know just about everything there is to know about the area. You might be right… Want to find out?

Take a look at these fun facts, and see how many you knew already…

  1. Panama City Beach is also known as the Seafood capital of the South. Thanks to all the seafood restaurants we have here, serving delicious Gulf seafood.
  2. One of the top 10 beaches in the entire United States is right here in Panama City Beach! St. Andrew’s State Park. Something else that makes the park really unique, is that it is home to 4 different habitats; lake, deciduous forest, sand dunes and ocean.
  3. We are also known as the wreck capital of the south. Don’t worry, this is for scuba diving, not driving! There’s a lot of shipwrecks located off the Gulf coast, making it a great spot to dive. Some of the highlights include a navy tug, a British tanker, and German U-boat and even a cargo ship known as the gray ghost.
  4. The world famous sugary white sand we have on our beaches actually comes from quartz crystals that were washed down from the Appalachian Mountains hundreds of years ago. Over time, these crystals were bleached, ground up, and polished, becoming the sand that we all love today.
  5. Our waters are home to one of the largest concentrations of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins anywhere on the planet!
  6. There are 100 different beach access points in Panama City Beach. Chances are, you’ve never visited them all. It might be a fun family vacation tradition to start working your way through all 100 on your next visit 😉
  7. The whitetail deer that live in St. Andrew’s State Park can actually swim across the pass to Shell Island. That’s the same trip that vacationers often take the Shell Island Shuttle to make. Think about that next time you make that trip. Could you swim across by yourself?