Took the family to Virginia Beach for a long weekend for a dance competition. Prior to this I may have been to to Virginia Beach once, many many years ago. We stayed near the convention center, about 15 – 20 min west of the beach, but drove to the beach for an afternoon and a day. We liked the Virginia Beach area, maybe even more then North Myrtle Beach and will try to detail a few reasons here.
Public parking was easy to access right across the main street going down the beach. The sand was darker in color and thicker in granular size (not as fine as MB) and from what they call the “Board Walk” to the ocean was a good distance, plenty of beach area. The beach was clean, no trash, no dead jelly fish, no broken shells all over. At one spot there were maybe 9 beach volley ball nets set up for people to play. At another location along the beach there was an assortment of fitness / jungle gym like structures set up, like climbing ropes, swinging ropes, parallel bars, pull-up bars, monkey bars, and climbing obstacle. Every couple blocks up and down the beach were public restrooms.
Their “board walk” was instead concrete, but it ran for about 3 miles or so along the beach. This was great for late afternoon and evening walks at the beach. The section we walked was not scattered with T-shirt and trinket shops, but instead hotels, parks and music pavilions. So as you walked the board walk the evening you could hear an array of music performers every couple blocks or so, stop, listen and walk on. Somewhere about the center of Virginia Beach is a statue of Neptune with dolphins, sea turtle and octopus. Beautiful sculpture and nicely lit for the evening.
I need to find a beach like that here in North Carolina.
