America's 10 Best Winter Beach Retreats

White sand and warm waters are closer than you think. When winter's chill sets in, escape to one of these laid-back, sun-drenched spots—no passport needed.

In Kauai, Hawaii, winter temperatures remain in the high 70s. The horseshoe-shaped, secluded Hanalei Bay is the best beach for swimming and lounging on the golden sand. This stretch is located near casual Hanalei Inn, with rooms from $139.

Kauai has managed to stay a little more under the radar than other Hawaiian islands, and that's what makes it so appealing. At the northernmost point of the island sits Kilauea Lighthouse, built in 1913.

In the midst of winter, nothing seems cheerier than the idea of Puerto Rico, where temperatures rarely dip below the 83-degree mark. On the west coast, Rincón's beaches are the surfing community's best-kept secret.

Casa Isleña Inn, in Rincón, Puerto Rico, is a Spanish-style house with nine guest rooms and a terrace overlooking the water—perfect for spotting humpback whales in the winter.

Ocean Beach, in San Diego, where temperatures stay in the 60s all through the winter and the crashing waves of the Pacific create a quintessential-American-beach-town vibe.

With its modern, glass-box look and hip indoor/outdoor restaurant and bar, Tower23 Hotel on Pacific Beach is a welcome departure from the outdated beach shacks that dot San Diego.

In Laguna Beach, Calif., La Casa del Camino has a range of accommodations, from a Craftsman-style cottage to the impossibly cool rooms designed for the 2010 Casa Surf Project, including the Billabong Suite shown here.

Done the right way, Laguna Beach (made famous by a reality show of the same name) can be incredibly down-to-earth. Beaches fill up during the summer, but in the winter months they're blissfully crowd-free

Pier 61 in Galveston, Tex., where winter temperatures hover in the low 60s and savvy travelers head to secluded West Beach to troll for shells or soak up some sun.

The historic tall ship Elissa in Galveston, Tex. Nearby is the revitalized Strand district, where buildings from the 1800s have been restored and now house restaurants, antiques stores, and many galleries full of fine art and photography.

Nine-mile Orange Beach, Ala., has everything you need—lots of room to spread out your beach blanket, warm waters as blue as any you'll find in Florida, and snow-white sand that's 95 percent quartz.

The beachside, 346-room Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach, Ala., is like a community unto itself, with four restaurants, an indoor/outdoor pool, hot tubs and tennis courts.

One of four islands that make up Georgia's Golden Isles (a collection of barrier islands just off the southeastern coast), St. Simons Island is known for its historical landmarks, white-sand beaches, and 99 holes of golf.

The oak trees on St. Simons Island, Ga., are so treasured that the charming Village Inn & Pub was built around them—not one tree had to be cut down during construction.

Clearwater Beach, near St. Petersburg, Fla. The warm Gulf waters are a popular hangout for dolphins—spot one from a three-person WaveRunner, a Hobie sailboat, or a kayak.

The year-old Postcard Inn on the Beach has been the talk of St. Petersburg, Fla., lately. In the courtyard, a fire pit surrounded by Adirondack chairs is the perfect place to wind down after a day at the beach.

In the winter, the population of Grand Isle, a barrier island off Louisiana's Gulf Coast, shrinks back down to 1,600 permanent residents from its summer high of 14,000. But temperatures remain warm enough to sunbathe, and you can do so without the crowds.

Anglers adore Grand Isle, La., thanks to the more than 280 species of fish in the surrounding waters, and many flock to Grand Isle State Park to fish in its calm waters.

Smack in the middle of the Florida Keys, you'll find tiny Long Key, just over two miles long from end to end. The isolated island is made up almost entirely of Long Key State Park, where the one-mile beach is perfect for tent camping.

Beach Houses You'll Have to See to Believe

Buzzards Bay Escape

For a seafront site on Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, Robert A. M. Stern designed a striking Shingle Style house for a Boston family. It stands at the tip of a peninsula that extends two and a half miles into the bay, with incomparable views in all directions. The low rise it sits upon is, in fact, the bunker of a World War II U.S. Navy surveillance station that remains buried on the site.

Miami Mystique

“It’s Miami Modern with subtle Art Déco features,” architect Robert M. Swedroe says of the house he shares with his wife, Rita, on Biscaya Island, in Florida, which he renovated. With its cantilevered decks, long railings and porthole windows, it has the look of a 1930s ocean liner.

Not Your Everyday Beach Cottage

Architect Robert A. M. Stern designed a three-story beach cottage for Robert and Lisa Nesbitt in Seaside, Florida. Since high dunes block an ocean view from the first floor, Stern created an upside-down house that reverses the usual placement of rooms to give the public areas a better view.

Minimalism in the Hamptons?

“It’s modern but with a substantial quality; it’s not slick,” architect Alexander Gorlin says of a beach house he designed in the Hamptons. “It needed a presence to it that would stand up to the ocean.” The 12,000-square-foot edifice seems to float weightlessly between the sky and water. As Gorlin puts it, “You pay the mighty ocean the humble compliment of extreme simplicity.”

Italian Villa in Florida's Indian Creek Village

In the late 1990s Paul and Trudy Cejas began building an Italian villa at Indian Creek Village in Florida; however, initial construction was put on hold when he was made American ambassador to Belgium in 1998. Upon their return, the Cejases hired architectural designer Joe Brennan and designer Axel Vervoordt, who they had met overseas, to finish their Miami villa. Pictured: The waterfront terrace, furnished with casual wicker pieces, is off the sunroom.

East Hampton Hideaway

A New York couple commissioned Barnes Coy Architects to design a retreat for their waterfront property in East Hampton. Living in the Hamptons can be a precarious balance between exposure and escape, social networking and intimate downtime. The house maximizes its site with an unusual clamshell plan that serves as both a sheltering device and a kind of architectural viewfinder, open to the water and sky while still being protective and private. The house’s crescent-shaped design offers a sequence of views from different platforms, positions and carefully managed sight lines. “Every room sets up a beautiful picture,” says one of the owners.

Malibu Retreat

Inspired by the architecture of southern Spain, interior designer Michael Lee transformed a Malibu, California, beach house once owned by Mary Astor into a stunning waterfront retreat. “My beach houses before were right on the sand, and you could only use so many antiques, but here I felt like I could get all my things out of the warehouse,” says Lee. Still, it is a beach house, and indoors and out it makes the most of its spectacular setting.

Luxury in Long Island

Interior designer Alexa Hampton was commissioned to redecorate a 4,500-square-foot Francis Fleetwood-designed Shingle Style residence on Long Island’s South Fork. Situated atop a ridge with sweeping views of the Atlantic, the house, built in 1992, is a short stroll from its own beach.

Modern Malibu with a View

“When we walked into the house, we were so overwhelmed by the view,” Diane Kahan says of the 5,000-square-foot Malibu residence that she and her husband, Jim, now call their beach house. Architect Ron Goldman reinvigorated the street façade, above, by angling and adding windows to the stucco wall and elongating the curved window of the stairwell corridor. The main attraction, however, will always be right outside the rear windows. “We still go crazy when the dolphins go by,” confides Jim Kahan.

Hawaiian Beauty

“You can see the trade winds coming toward you across the surface of the ocean,” says architect Thomas A. Kligerman, of Ike Kligerman Barkley, who incorporated a romanticized Hawaiian aesthetic into the Maui retreat of film director-producer Richard Donner and his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner. The couple wanted a place where they could “come in with sand on their feet,” says Kligerman, so he installed stone floors that flow out to a lanai.

Concrete Fortress by the Sea

An oceanfront concrete, steel and glass house near San Diego was designed by Wallace E. Cunningham to make the most of an intimate site. “The first thing we did when my clients bought the property was to climb onto the roof of the run-down single-story house that was there and see what we could see,” explains Cunningham. “The view was everything,” he remembers from that exploratory visit. “To get that view corridor, we designed the house upside down, with all the principal rooms—the kitchen, the living and dining areas and the master bedroom—on the highest level.”

Santa Monica's Spanish Charmer

Architect Marc Appleton and associate Paul Williger reimagined a Spanish-style Santa Monica, California, house for Michael and Danielle Braverman. The architects took out the walls separating the kitchen and the dining and living rooms and raised the ceiling three and a half feet to create “one big great room with arched openings looking out to the pool and the beach,” he notes. Pictured: The pool courtyard, complete with a futon and a freestanding fireplace, “extends the whole living space,” notes Williger. A window-like opening and large gate connect it to the beach.

All-American Style in Nantucket

On Nantucket, Massachusetts, a couple commissioned Botticelli & Pohl Architects and interior designer Elissa Cullman to create their seaside retreat. Outside the living room is the wide rear porch, which offers a shady vantage point from which to gaze at the boats crossing Nantucket Sound. The stairs descend to the beach.