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Waste Time Wisely
The Art of Surf: Five Artists Who Turned Their Boards Into Canvases
An angler fish built from a piano leg, mandala-covered hollow wooden boards, and old-school tattoo art on foam — five surfers who paint what the ocean...
Five Guys and Some Oars: The Story of Destin's East Pass
In 1929, five men in a skiff hacked a trench in the sand with their oars. By the next morning it was 1,300 feet across.
Moon Crush (ing It): The Festival Built in a Pandemic
Two thousand people, one stage, and a golf course divided into roped-off COVEs — how a bike ride down Highway 98 became a five-day music vacation.
The Ocean Cleanup: Using Technology to Save Our Seas
A garbage patch three times the size of France, a solar-powered river Interceptor that pulls 110,000 pounds a day, and an inventor who started at 18.
Why the Sea Glows: A Field Guide to Bioluminescence
A sunk submarine, an Apollo 13 astronaut, and a single-celled organism that lights up when you paddle through it — plus where to see it in...
Smiles for Miles: WaterColor Welcomes 30A's First Beach Happy Cafe
A bike commute across Western Lake, cupcakes the color of the Gulf, and a couple who want to bottle the 30A feeling and send it everywhere...
Beach Volleyball Serves Up Fun in the Sun
Why the Florida panhandle became one of the best places in the country to play — and why nobody there will let you stand around watching.
Hands-On: Inside the 30A Sea Life Discovery Center
Snorkeling with sea turtles, net pulls, and a rule called "plus one" — how a marine biologist is building the next generation of ocean advocates.
Beaches Abroad: Pebble Beach, Nice, France
The Baie des Anges, a 15,000-bottle cellar, and the golden light Matisse moved here for — what a week on the French Riviera actually costs.
Small Town, Big Vision: DeFuniak Springs
Four thousand people a day once arrived by train for the Florida Chautauqua. Now a Tesla Supercharger is bringing them back to the historic district.
Taking the Coast Home: Four Gulf Coast Jewelry Makers
Shells drilled on a kitchen table, Pensacola sand set under crystal, a happy accident that became the Stingray Collection, and pearls strung with shipwreck silver.
Jubilee! Mobile Bay's Free-for-All Fish Fiesta
Before dawn, the bells ring and the whole shoreline runs for the water. The science behind the only place on earth where this happens regularly.
Fewer Than 50 Left: Saving the Rice's Whale
A 60,000-pound whale that lives nowhere else on earth has taken refuge off the Florida panhandle. Healthy Gulf is fighting to keep it there.
Cape San Blas: Three Years After Hurricane Michael
A Category 5 storm cut the peninsula in half. Walking with the Turtle Patrol at sunrise, it's hard to reconcile what happened here with what you...
Gulf to Table: Inside Harbor Docks' Fight for Fresh, Local Seafood
Eighty-seven percent of fish gets swapped for something cheaper. Here's how to tell what's really from the Gulf — and why the price tag matters.
The Lodge at Gulf State Park: Where Economics and Environment Coexist
A 350-room eco-hotel built with oil-spill settlement money now funds the 6,150-acre park it sits in — proof that environmental and economic interests can pull in...
Planting Memories: How Trees on the Coast Is Reshaping the Panhandle
A retired Navy dentist got mad about billboards with no trees. Five hundred trees later, his Honor Tree program lets anyone put a life story in...
Happy Birthday, Bikini: 75 Years of the Suit That Changed the Beach
Named after a nuclear test site, banned by countries, condemned by the Vatican — and then it took over the beach. A decade-by-decade look at the...
