Okay, I will admit I have lived here 5 years and never been to Ocean City. However, I love the Outer Banks, especially in the off season. Myrtle Beach is a fave also. We spent 2 weeks going up the Michigan coast of Lake Michigan. There are some great state and national parks with beautiful beaches.

So where do you go? Where should I spend my next beach week?

We make the trek to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. It's so nice, everything is growth controlled, but there is still all the restaurants and shops that you would find in Myrtle Beach except you don't deal with the high-rise condos and the drunken teens.

I lived around beaches most of my childhood. My favorite now a days is Virginia Beach. Va Beach has really cleaned its image up alot since I lived there in the early eighties. Streets are cleaner, safer, and more beautiful than I remember. They have tried very hard in the last 10 years to make themselves more family oriented with concerts and such on the boardwalk. They even have a free trolly that runs up and down the coastal road.

Went to Melbourne, FL beach few years ago, Yuck ! The sand was all sea shells and it hurt walking on it.

Ocean City, not bad. If you like getting pooped on by sea gulls while walking down the boardwalk! I swear it was like a horror flick when I was there. Gulls were out of control !!!

Forgot one other place. We went to Gulf Shores/Orange Beach, Alabama in February. The water was cold, but I'm not a swimmer anyway. It was very quiet, lots of snowbirds from MI, IL, and IN. Our daughter was the only child around and all these old people just adopted her. She loved all the attention, and everyone was so pleasant, since it wasn't hectic and crowded.

Gulf Shores has become the "new" Florida for the South. I guess people are skipping Panama City because of all the college kids (was one of them while at Auburn). Now I really can't blame them!

Gee,we only go to Delaware. We have a pop-up camper and rent a space with water and electric for 34$ a day(thats cheap) at the state park there.You're only 400yrds. from the beach and theres a bay on the west side for boaters and fishers.A 5min. drive and you're either in Bethany Beach(go south) or Rehobeth(north).

Our 2 weeks last summer was spent in a tent....setting up and tearing down every day as we moved up the coast. Would loooove to get a pop-up or other rv. However, I have this terrible thing called a mortgage .

We only paid 600$ for ours.Not a thing wrong with it.We did go ahead and re-waterproof the seams.It's got an ice box(not electric,uses ice blocks),and a two burner propane stove.It can sleep 6.With the flaps down it's like sleepin outside but without the crawlies!
We've been going around looking at the big ones.Trailer envy!
The new pop-ups are like catalacs compared to ours.It's good enough for now tho.

We have two timeshare weeks in Atlantic Beach, NC. AB is about
half-way between the Outer Banks and Wilmington. We've been
going there for about 6 years now. It's nice because there aren't
a whole lot of people there, and the island is situated in an east
to west orientation, so the sun is always right over head, not in
your face or on your back, and the water is warmer than it is
around Hatteras, KDH, Duck, etc.

I haven't been to Virginia Beach in about 20 years, maybe more.
I haven't been to Ocean City in probably 15 years.
I was at Rehoboth about 5 years ago.
I've been to Myrtle Beach once, and wasn't too impressed.

My grandparents used to own a cottage near the southeastern
shore of Lake Michigan....talk about COLD WATER !!!

I grew up in Southern California...those are the beaches I
remember: Newport Beach, Laguna Niguel, Corona Del Mar,
Dana Point, Seal Beach, etc....I haven't been back to the
Left Coast since 1979....

When I retire, I want to be near the water...probably end up in NC.

I still go to Ocean City for the kitsch value, but I think the nicest beach experience I've ever had is Spring Lake, NJ. It is a private beach and my fiance and I stayed at a bed and breakfast there for our anniversary. There is nothing like going for a bike ride at 6am on the boardwalk, wind whipping through your hair, hearing the surf crashing, and not seeing another soul for miles! It was very peaceful.

I really enjoy Virginia Beach now. My boyfriend is a marine bio guy and we enjoy going there for whale watching excursions in late Feb / early March with the VA Institute of Marine Science.

momsapilot - it is possible to RENT an RV for a week or so. I can't remember what the company name is, but we saw a ton of Rented RVs last August when we went to Yellowstone. I might like to try that myself sometime.

I'll tell ya ,some of those RV's are like Condos on wheels! We went thru some of them at RV Centers around the area.I think those were for the people who live in them year-round.Man,luxurey!
We acually saw a pop-up that had it's own small shower and chem toilet!
They're so much easier than fooling with a tent and sleepin on the ground!My arthritis ya know

I was watching a thing on RV's on the Travel Channel, and buying some RV's is like buying a small house! It would be nice to have on long trips, and I guess you'd save money on the hotel, but I would imagine gas would be astronomical!

Keytone RV, just across the boarder on 81, has rental RV's. We checked them out last year, but they were going to be more than staying in a hotel since we were doing all that driving in Michigan. However, we are considering it for a long weekend, say Williamsburg, sometime. A large national RV rental chain is CruiseAmerica. They don't have any too close to here, though.
I'm trying to convince my hubby to sell our house so we can buy a huge RV and just live in it and go all over the country . He's not into that idea

As a kid, I went to OC with family every summer. In college, a group of us would go every year. Haven't been there since. This year we went to Antigua, last year Mexico. We like the Caribbean

I live in Ocean City, MD...so for vacation we go to Hagerstown! Just kidding. We don't go to the beach for vaca...we go to Disney at Xmas.

The Outer Banks, specifically Hatteras Island, is THE BEST.

Even more specifically, the area around mid-island - Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo - very quiet and relaxed. Stay for 2 weeks and they'll have to drag you away kicking and screaming!

Hopefully the Outer Banks will still be there this summer!

Oh, they've seen so many hurricanes over the years. This was just another. There will be lots of rebuilding to do, but they're pretty well used to it there.

Yeah--I saw the OBX on the news this am...it still stands...goodie...I like it there..I visited Kill Devil Hills this past Aug..did not want to come home...

Never been to the N.Carolina beaches myself. Might consider going after hearing your all's rave reviews of the outer banks. Just never went back to the Carolinas since Myrtle Beach. Any place in particular I should stay?