Idyllic Town Fit for The Truman Show
When planning our trip to the Northwest US, we used the Internet to find this quaint coastal town called Seabrook. From the pictures, it looked like a hip, upscale town, and it felt oddly familiar. Many of my readers know we live in Florida but may not know exactly where. We live on scenic 30-a, a beautiful coastal highway that runs along the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico, in a town called Seacrest. Seacrest is nestled right between the trendy towns of Rosemary Beach and Alys Beach.
Only a few miles down 30-a is a town called Seaside, Florida. This is where they filmed the 1998 movie “The Truman Show” (starring Jim Carrey). In the movie, they called the town Seahaven, but most of the iconic houses, interior roads and shops were shot in Seaside. I think they chose Seaside as the location for this film because of the small beach homes with tin roofs and white picket fences. Here are some pictures of Seaside (not all of these pictures are my originals).
If you wish to see a slide show, click here: http://www.webetripping.com/Gallery_USA_WA_Seabrook.asp
When we arrived in Seabrook, we talked to several of the locals and they all talked about how Seabrook was modeled after The Truman Show and Seaside, Florida. We then knew why this felt so oddly familiar. Since we stayed here a week, we formed our own opinions about how similar yet different the two communities are.
First, the houses in Seabrook are little more in the “New England Nantucket style”, with gray shingles and standard roofs. We certainly have houses on 30-a in this style (think Watersound). I think I actually prefer the look of these Seabrook homes over Seaside:
Score one for Seabrook.
Seaside has lots of little shops and plenty of eateries. If you haven’t been to Great Southern for the best cheese grits around, you’re missing out! Seabrook has one eatery (Mill 109). It has good food but it is small and limiting. Seaside has lots of food choices.
Score one for Seaside.
Seabrook has some cool hiking trails that lead you around the community and it is set in a beautiful mountain setting. Huge alpine trees and wonderful vistas.
Score one for Seabrook.
We brought our bikes and found that Seabrook is not very bike friendly. You can ride around the community, but you get about 10 minutes of biking time and you run out of places to go. As anyone that has visited Seaside and anywhere on 30-a knows, we have over 28 miles of paved bike trails on 30-a. And most of the way, it has beach views. Simply awesome!
I took this picture from scenic 30-a while biking
Score one for Seaside.
Seabrook is flanked by a small fishing town, Pacific Beach. This town is really small, has no movie theater, and has no endearing restaurants. If you want to drive about 25 minutes, you can drive to Ocean Shores. Ocean Shores does have a small theater that offers 3 different movie titles. It offers a few touristy things to do (a casino, go carts, golf, and bowling).
But when contrasted with Seaside, it pales in comparison. In Seaside, you can take a quick trip to Pier Park with tons of restaurants, bars, fishing piers, shopping, and a proper movie theater. Or you can jump in the car and visit Destin, who has a Bass Pro Shop, lots of restaurants, water parks, golf, mini golf and more than you can imagine to do.
Score one for Seaside.
The biggest difference between the two communities is the beach. Seaside wins hands down. In Seabrook, the beach has dark, mud-like sand while Seaside offers white, powdery, sugar-like sands. In Seaside, you will see tons of people on the beach, building sand castles, swimming, surfing, snorkeling, and lounging under umbrellas. In Seabrook, you may encounter 10 people on the beach, some flying kites and a few kids making mud pies. With Seaside summer temperatures in the upper 80’s and low 90’s as compared to Seabrook’s mid 60’s, you can understand why.
Seaside, Florida
Seaside, Florida
Score one for Seaside.
The final contrast I’ll draw is the people. People are friendly in both locations but you won’t hear that infamous southern drawl in Washington. For me, that is a good thing, I get tired of hearing my own southern drawl. Now you know why these blogs are written and not in video form. 🙂
Score one for Seabrook.
Seabrook, Washington
With all that said, we think they are both great beach communities and we really enjoyed our stay. We highly recommend you visit if you travel to the Northwest US. And of course, if you want stunning beaches, you gotta go to scenic 30-a.
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