By The Sea Life covers the beach towns, coastal homes, seaside escapes, and shoreline food worth your time, without pretending every stretch of sand is an untouched paradise. Written by people who check the tide chart before they check the weather.
Read the latest storiesClaire Marlow has spent the better part of a decade tracking what actually makes a coastal town worth the drive, from a three-stoplight fishing village in Maine to a swollen-with-tourists boardwalk town in Florida that somehow still gets the fried clams right. This site is where that research lands: honest coastal travel guidance, real coastal home ideas, and the seafood and slow-living details that get left out of the glossy version.
We don't invent hotel stays. We don't smooth over a town's off-season when it's genuinely quiet and half-shuttered. If a beach is eroding, we say so. If the best table at a seafood shack seats four and there's a wait, we say that too. That's the whole approach.
A few publications covering coastal life that are worth following directly. These cards work with no script at all — JavaScript only adds recent headlines on top when a feed allows it.
Coastal reporting and lifestyle stories from Coastal Virginia Magazine.
Visit Coastal Virginia Magazine →Coastal reporting and lifestyle stories from Outer Banks Coastal Life.
Visit Outer Banks Coastal Life →Coastal reporting and lifestyle stories from Life Along the Gulf Coast.
Visit Life Along the Gulf Coast →A coastal town is worth visiting when it still feels lived-in, not staged for tourists. We look at walkability, whether locals still shop on the main street, how the town handles its shoreline, and if there's a season when it empties out and shows its real character.
Both. We cover seaside travel the way a friend who lives near the coast would recommend it, alongside coastal home design, seafood traditions, and the small rituals of living near open water, whether you're visiting for a weekend or year-round.
New guides and stories go up regularly across our six coverage areas, from beach town guides to coastal interior features. Check the Tide And Tell blog index for the newest additions.
Occasionally, and it's always labeled. See our Advertise page for how we handle sponsored content and what we won't compromise on, including never inventing a stay or a meal we didn't have.