Carillon Beach, Florida....A Slice of Heaven

Carillon Beach is a lovely gated community of beach homes on tree lined streets with white picket fences. It is just east of the popular Scenic 30A area in the Florida Panhandle.

My family and I really loved Seaside and Rosemary Beach, but found those communities to be over-priced and over-crowded. Carillon offers more tranquility with equal quality of rental homes and amenities.

Having children, I also like that Carillon is gated, private and offers safety for families. There is a village in the community that has a coffee shop, ice cream shop, yoga center, beach store with bike rentals and several restaurants. The community has a bell tower that plays every hour at the top of the hour and is a replica of the Bells of Carillon in Italy.

We have stayed in Carillon 3 different times and enjoyed renting a different beach house each time. One of the homes was featured in Southern Living magazine, which we thought was pretty neat. The decor and comfort level were top notch at all three.

The beach has the famous sugar white sand and turquoise water. Most houses come with dedicated beach chairs and umbrella that are set up each morning by an attendant. The houses also provided all sorts of beach toys which saved us from buying a bunch of things unnecessarily.

There are so many things to do in Carillon and the nearby community. There are several grocery stores within 1/2 mile as well as a new shopping and entertainment venue called Pier Park.

To find homes for rent in Carillon, the primary websites are VRBO www.vrbo.com; Emerald Waters www.emeraldwaters.net and Carillon Beach Rentals www.carillon-rentals.com.

I will add separate posts with pics of the three houses we in which we have had the pleasure of staying.