Hawaii and Florida Just Dominated America’s Best Beaches List for 2026

May 24, 2026

Jeremy Moore

Poipu Beach on Kauai takes the top spot on this year’s Dr. Beach list to beat out a crowded field of Hawaii and Florida contenders to land in the No 1 spot for 2026.

Poipu Beach is shaped like a crescent, surrounded by greenery, with a small island sitting just offshore, and it scored the highest across the 50 criteria that coastal scientist Stephen Leatherman uses to put together his annual ranking. Dr. Letterman has been ranking beaches since 1991, according to the report by CNN.

St. Andrews State Park in Panama City, Florida, came in second, and the rest of the top 10 is more of the same, geographically speaking. Caladesi Island State Park near Dunedin/Clearwater, Florida, and Wailea Beach on Maui, Hawaii, both made the cut. Between Hawaii and Florida, they both account for the majority of the list, which isn’t unusual.

The one notable outlier this year is Main Beach in East Hampton, New York, which ranked fifth. Leatherman describes it as having a “peaceful, countryside setting in a small village” with towering sand dunes. It’s one of the few Northeast beaches to crack the top five, and the reason most others don’t comes down to water temperature.

Leatherman focuses specifically on swimming beaches, meaning the water actually has to be warm enough that people get in. He’s said beaches in Maine, Connecticut, and similar states are often just too “nippy” to qualify.

One Massachusetts beach does appear at No. 10: Coast Guard Beach on Cape Cod. Visitors reach it by bike or shuttle bus. Seals have been congregating there in recent years.

Also in the top 10 is Kaunaoa Beach, which is known as Mauna Kea Beach, on the Big Island of Hawaii. Kaunaoa Beach sits inside the Mauna Kea Beach Resort, but the shoreline itself is publicly accessible by right of way.

Beaches left off the list

Three beaches were excluded from this year’s ranking. Coronado Beach in San Diego is off for the second consecutive year because of sewage contamination from the Tijuana River. San Diego County has been issuing water quality advisories repeatedly, with new ones citing the river issued as recently as May. Leatherman has been pretty direct about it: “It is wrecking that whole area.” Lighthouse Beach on the Outer Banks of North Carolina was removed due to erosion, and Cape Florida State Park in Miami didn’t make it because of the volume of sargassum seaweed washing ashore.

Leatherman also noted that strong tidal movements can work against a beach’s chances for high rankings. Murky water is also a factor, since swimmers tend to want visibility once they’re in.

For the Pacific Northwest and Northern California coast, the issue is simply temperature. He says he personally likes beaches in Washington and Oregon, but hears from locals every year when they’re passed over. “It’s just too bloody cold,” he said.

Leatherman periodically “retires” beaches from the ranking so other spots get a turn, though retirement doesn’t signal a drop in quality. Last year’s top beach, Coopers Beach in Southampton, New York, is no longer eligible but Leatherman says it’s still excellent. Poipu, this year’s No. 1, had ranked third in 2025.
He says there are around 650 major public recreational beaches in the US, and he’s visited all of them.