Website says cheapest weeklong beach vacation is right here in North Central Florida

Alan Festo, Gainesville Sun
·2 min read

The most affordable beach town in the U.S. is right here in North Central Florida, according to at least one analysis.

Upgraded Points, a website that aims to help travelers best use their credit card points and miles to upgrade their vacation experiences, ranked Cedar Key as the cheapest location for a weeklong beachfront vacation rental among 75 of the country’s most popular beach towns.

The website used Airbnb listings to calculate the average cost for houses and hotels in each town.

It determined that an average weeklong stay in a beachfront rental — house or hotel — in Cedar Key is $1,330.

People are shown playing in the beach area of Cedar Key in 2017. An analysis by Points Upgraded determined Cedar Key as the cheapest beachfront vacation in the U.S.
People are shown playing in the beach area of Cedar Key in 2017. An analysis by Points Upgraded determined Cedar Key as the cheapest beachfront vacation in the U.S.

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Key West was listed as the most expensive beach town in Florida with an average weeklong price of $4,547 for a beachfront vacation.

Other Florida beach towns on the list include Miami Beach ($4,211), Sanibel Island ($3,472), Naples ($3,356), Jacksonville Beach ($3,062), Clearwater Beach ($3,150) and St. Augustine ($2,443).

The most expensive places on the list were all in New York: Montauk ($6,454), South Hampton ($6,391) and East Hampton ($6,178). The average weeklong stay in Malibu California was listed at $6,150.

Airbnb costs more

Upgraded Points found that staying in a beachfront home adds 27% to the rental's average nightly price. It also found that booking a home on Airbnb cost about 25% more than booking a hotel room on Airbnb.

Across all 75 towns studied, the average nightly price to stay at a beachfront home on Airbnb for a week was $3,771. An average beachfront hotel on Airbnb came in at $2,936.

If an ocean view isn’t that important to your beach vacation, the analysis shows there’s plenty of money to be saved depending on where you visit.

While a non-ocean view in Cedar Key will save you just $14 a week, that same concession in Malibu will save you $5,383 a week. In Florida, Jacksonville Beach — at a savings of $1,701 — had the greatest price difference between beachfront and non-beachfront vacation homes.

It's unclear from the website’s data if it looked at peak or non-peak vacation times for each location. It’s also unclear if the prices listed include extra costs such as booking and cleaning fees.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Upgraded Points determines Cedar Key offers cheapest oceanfront stay