A word about the name, because it confuses people. There are two Panama Citys here: the older inland city of Panama City, the Bay County seat across the bay, and Panama City Beach, the resort city on the Gulf — separate towns with separate governments. (Neither is the one in Central America, though the inland city is said to have taken its name from its spot on a straight line between Chicago and the canal.) When people picture “Panama City” with white sand and neon and a roller coaster, they mean the Beach.
The Strip’s other landmark is older and stranger. In the late 1950s a welder-artist named Lee Koplin began pouring concrete dinosaurs, a sphinx, and a giant grinning gorilla beside a miniature-golf course, and Goofy Golf was born — Day-Glo roadside folk art that a Washington Post writer once said “ought to be placed on the national historic register.” It still stands. Around it grew the whole vocabulary of the old beach: motels with neon signs, sno-cone stands, a fake volcano, live sharks in tanks at the surf shops. This is the Florida of cheap, happy, slightly tacky fun, and Panama City Beach kept more of it than almost anywhere.
Why People Visit Panama City Beach
Panama City Beach rewards visitors who want bright white sand, warm emerald water, and an unpretentious good time, with a thread of retro neon still running through it. Add the piers, Shell Island, and the year-round Gulf sun, and the World’s Most Beautiful Beaches make their own case.
