Panama City Beach has topped a new cleanliness ranking of Florida's most-visited shorelines, leading the state in litter-related complaints logged in Tripadvisor reviews. The study, conducted by sustainable drinkware brand Just Bottle, combed through reviews for keywords such as trash, dirty, smelly, litter, cigarette butts, garbage and filthy, then ranked beaches with at least 50 reviews by total keyword mentions.
Panama City Beach recorded 585 litter-related mentions overall, including 233 references to trash and 60 to cigarette butts. Despite those complaints, the destination holds a 4.6 out of 5 average rating on Tripadvisor, with more than 76 percent of its roughly 6,600 reviewers awarding an excellent score — a sign that visitors can enjoy a beach even while noticing environmental shortcomings.
Clearwater Beach came in second with 460 mentions and an identical 4.6 average rating, followed by Fort Myers Beach in third with 403 mentions. Fort Myers Beach stood out for a different reason: unpleasant smells dominated its complaints, appearing 109 times compared to 43 trash mentions. That pattern also showed up at Siesta Beach, which ranked fifth with 375 mentions and 128 smell-related references, yet still achieved a 4.7 average rating with nearly 80 percent five-star reviews. Fort Lauderdale Beach rounded out the top five in fourth place with 380 mentions.
The rest of the top ten included Bahia Honda State Park, Hollywood Beach, Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach and St. Augustine Beach. Just Bottle co-founder Millie Mallett noted that strong overall scores can mask recurring cleanliness frustrations, and that summer crowd levels put significant pressure on waste management systems — meaning even modest amounts of discarded litter can compound quickly during peak travel weeks.
The findings were originally reported by Travel and Tour World.
