11 US Beach Towns That Are Still Warm in December

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Eleven US beach towns we cover average 70°F or better in December, five of them in Hawaii and five in Florida. Kihei on Maui is the warmest at 83°F. On the mainland Key West leads at 78°F, and South Padre Island is the one worth writing down, because it runs 72°F in December while its median three-star room in the off-season week we price is $127 a night against $387 in Key West. We travel slowly with kids, one thing a day and a long afternoon in the water, so a warm week that does not empty the account is the whole point of going in winter. By the end you will know which towns stay warm, which ones only look affordable because nobody can use the beach, and the one week we price where warmth and low rates overlap.

The 6 Mainland Towns That Clear 70°F in December

Seventy degrees is the line the cost index uses for beach weather. On the mainland, six of the towns we cover clear it in December. They are Key West, Sanibel Island, Siesta Key, Clearwater Beach, South Padre Island and Daytona Beach. All of them are in Florida except South Padre Island, which sits at the bottom of the Texas coast, and Daytona Beach is the only one on Florida’s east coast.

Siesta Key is warm enough but carries too few three-star rates in that week to publish a median, so it is listed without a price rather than with a number built on two hotels. The temperatures in that table are December normals. The prices beside them are from the late-January week, because December is not one of the weeks we price. Daytona Beach sits outside our 24-town cost index, so its December normal and late-January rate come from the wider set of towns we collected for the same week.

Hawaii Is the Warmest US Answer in December

All five Hawaii towns we cover average 77°F or better in December, and three of them are warmer than Key West, the warmest town on the mainland. Kihei on Maui tops the list at 83°F.

Honolulu is the least expensive of the priced Hawaii towns at $178 a night in the late-January week, below every priced mainland town on the list above except South Padre Island. Those are room rates only. Airfare is not in any figure in this article, and for a family flying to Hawaii it is the part of the budget these numbers cannot see. Kihei, Kaanapali and Princeville carry too few three-star rates in that week to publish a median.

Kihei has no reporting station of its own, so its figure comes from the Kahului station on the same island. We leave Lahaina out of the table even though it averages 78°F in December, because much of the town burned in August 2023 and we have not verified what has reopened. Kaanapali, a few miles up the coast from Lahaina, is listed.

Florida in December, From the Keys to the Panhandle

Florida splits roughly in half in December. Key West, Sanibel Island, Siesta Key, Clearwater Beach and Daytona Beach average 70°F or better, with Key West the warmest at 78°F. Amelia Island, St. George Island and Destin all sit in the sixties, which makes for a good week of walking the beach and a cool one for swimming.

For a December trip the practical line runs across the middle of the state. Clearwater Beach and Daytona Beach are the northernmost towns we cover that still clear 70°F, and both only just, so the Keys and the southwest Gulf coast are the safer bet for a warm afternoon in the water.

Where the Other Nineteen Towns Land

Nine towns sit in the sixties, warm enough for a walk on the sand and a jacket in the evening but not for swimming. Six are properly cold, and four are below 45°F, with Mackinac Island averaging 31°F.

The Towns That Stay Warm Are the Ones That Cost Most in Winter

Of the 24 towns we price, the six with the lowest rates in the late-January week are Gulf Shores, Destin, Ocean City, Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach and Galveston. Not one of them is beach weather in December.

Gulf Shores at $74 a night is the lowest rate anywhere in the index that week, and its December average high is 64°F. Ocean City is $102 at 49°F. Those are real prices for real rooms, and a family booking on price alone would arrive to a beach nobody swims at. Our ranking of the most affordable family beach towns is built on the August week, when all 24 are warm, which is why its order looks nothing like this one.

The Warm Towns Get More Expensive as Winter Goes On

Across the three off-peak weeks we price with the same method, all four of the priced warm towns follow the same order. Late October is the lowest, late January is higher, and the March break week is the highest. There are no exceptions in this set.

Key West runs $319 in late October, $387 in late January and $437 at March break. South Padre Island moves $113 to $127 to $215 across the same three weeks. In the towns that are warm in winter, winter is the high season, so the off-season discount a family is hoping for sits in the towns where the beach has closed for the year.

Late October Is the Week Where Warmth and Low Rates Overlap

In the last week of October, 16 of the 24 towns average 70°F or better, against five in December. Thirteen of those 16 carry enough rates to price, and nine of them are warmer that week than Key West is in December.

Myrtle Beach at $87 a night averages 76°F that week, warmer than three of the five December towns manage in December and $40 a night below South Padre Island, which is the least expensive of them. Gulf Shores is $97 at 79°F. If the trip can move, moving it to late October does more for the budget than changing the destination does.

What These Numbers Cannot Tell You

We do not price a December week. The four weeks in the cost index are August, late October, late January and March break, so the December column in this article is temperature only. Christmas and New Year are peak weeks on this coast, and the late-January rate is not a stand-in for them. If you are booking for the holidays, take the ordering of the towns from here and get the actual price from the booking links.

The temperatures are average daytime air highs, not water temperatures. An air temperature of 71°F on the Texas coast in December is a warm afternoon and not necessarily a warm sea, and the gap between the two widens the further north a town sits. We hold no water-temperature data, so nothing here claims any.

Hawaii is covered above from a wider set of towns than the cost index. Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are warmer than most of the mainland and are not in our data, so a reader whose real question is about those should not read this list as complete.

Warmth is one filter of several. If the deciding factor is flat water rather than temperature, our list of beach towns with calm water for toddlers sorts the same coast a different way. If it is getting around without a rental car, the walkable beach towns list covers that, and the wider family beach guide routes by whatever the trip actually needs.

How We Got These Numbers

The rates are 810 individual three-star nightly prices collected from Booking.com for the three off-peak weeks named above, filtered to hotels for two adults, with vacation rentals and out-of-town listings removed. We publish the median for each town rather than the average, because one resort at four times the going rate would otherwise drag a whole town upward.

December temperatures are NOAA monthly normals, read from each town’s Wikipedia weather box where that box cites NOAA and straight from NOAA’s own 1991 to 2020 normals for the nearest station where it does not. Every town records which station its figure came from. Nine of the 24 towns have no reporting station of their own and read from a documented nearby one, so Sanibel Island uses Fort Myers and Ogunquit uses Portland. The August figures in our wider cost index come from a different source and a different filter, which is why nothing here compares a price to an August price.

The six towns outside the index, Kihei, Kailua-Kona, Honolulu, Kaanapali, Princeville and Daytona Beach, were added on September 23, 2026 using the same December normals method. Their late-January rates come from a September 2 collection of the same week with the same three-star filter and the same rule that a town needs at least three qualifying hotels before we publish a median, which is why they can sit in the same tables as the index towns.

Rates move and these are snapshots. What holds steadier than any single figure is the ordering, which is the part worth planning around. The full four-week picture for all 24 towns, including the summer week, is in the cost index.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the warmest beach in the US in December?

Of the towns we cover, Kihei on Maui is the warmest in December at an average daytime high of 83°F. On the mainland it is Key West at 78°F, followed by Sanibel Island at 77°F and Siesta Key at 75°F. Puerto Rico is warmer still and sits outside our data.

Where is it warm enough to swim in December in the US?

Hawaii is the surest answer, where every town we cover averages 77°F or better. On the mainland it is south Florida and the southern Gulf. Key West, Sanibel Island and Siesta Key all average 70°F or better in the air. Water is the part we cannot measure from this data, and it lags the air temperature more the further north a town sits, so treat the bottom of the mainland list as a warm afternoon rather than a swimming one.

Is Florida warm enough for the beach in December?

The southern half is. Key West, Sanibel Island, Siesta Key, Clearwater Beach and Daytona Beach average 70°F or better in December. The Panhandle and the northeast corner are not, with Amelia Island, St. George Island and Destin all in the sixties.

Are US beach towns less expensive in winter?

The cold ones are. The warm ones are not. The six lowest late-January rates in our index belong to Gulf Shores, Destin, Ocean City, Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach and Galveston, and none of them averages 70°F in December. In the mainland towns that stay warm and that we price across all three weeks, late January costs more than late October, and March break costs more again.

When is the least expensive time for a warm US beach vacation?

Of the weeks we price, late October. Sixteen towns average 70°F or better then, and Myrtle Beach at $87 a night is the lowest of the priced ones at 76°F. Seven nights of lodging there works out to $609.

What does a week at the beach cost in December?

We do not price a December week, so the honest answer is that we cannot tell you from this data. The closest weeks we do price are late October and late January, and both are shown above. Holiday weeks run above both of them.