Development and Tourism
Popular vacation destinations include Pensacola Beach, Gulf Breeze, Navarre Beach, Fort Walton Beach, Niceville, WaterColor, Panama City Beach, Destin, and Seaside, a planned community whose iconic pastel-paint and tin-roof construction was made famous in the Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show, filmed in the area from 1996-1997. Other communities on the Emerald Coast include Perdido Key, Navarre, Sandestin, Mexico Beach, Grayton Beach, Inlet Beach, and Santa Rosa Beach.
The area is known as a family drive destination, although in the first decade of the 21st century, its popularity expanded greatly, leading to new construction booms and seemingly overnight changes. Many development communities similar to Seaside sprang up in the southern part of Walton County and at the western end of Panama City Beach, raising property values.
Deep-sea fishing is a huge draw for the area, with Destin holding the nickname "World's Luckiest Fishing Village" (and several saltwater world records) and Panama City Beach hosting the annual high-dollar Bay Point Billfish Invitational. The area has many seafood restaurants as well.
Read more about this topic: Emerald Coast
Famous quotes containing the words development and/or tourism:
“Ultimately, it is the receiving of the child and hearing what he or she has to say that develops the child’s mind and personhood.... Parents who enter into a dialogue with their children, who draw out and respect their opinions, are more likely to have children whose intellectual and ethical development proceeds rapidly and surely.”
—Mary Field Belenky (20th century)
“In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.”
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