Palm Beach is an island. It is 22 kilometres long and, at its widest, about a kilometre across, separated from West Palm Beach by the Lake Worth Lagoon and connected by three bridges. It has around 9,000 permanent residents and building rules that have barely changed since Addison Mizner set the Mediterranean Revival style here in the 1920s.
The mainland side, West Palm Beach, has a downtown, a growing restaurant scene, an airport and considerably lower rates. It is a five-minute drive and a completely different proposition.
Why the bridge matters
The island is where the ocean is. Palm Beach's beaches run its entire eastern edge, Worth Avenue's shopping is on it, and the whole place is walkable and quiet in a way a mainland city is not.
West Palm has the food, the museums and the value. It does not have a beach in any meaningful sense; the lagoon side is a waterway, not a shore.
There is a second island consideration. Palm Beach's season is short and specific: roughly Thanksgiving to Easter, when the northern residents are here. In July the island is hot, humid and half closed, and rates fall by more than half.
The seven below are grouped by which side of the bridge.
On the island
Ocean at the door, Worth Avenue on foot.
The Breakers Palm Beach is the 1896 resort rebuilt in 1926 as an Italian Renaissance palace, on 57 hectares with half a mile of private beach, four pools and a golf course inside the property. It is the most famous hotel in Florida and it is family-owned to this day.
The Breakers Palm Beach
Palm Beach island · 5★ · $$$$
Half a mile of private beach on 57 hectares
Check availabilityFour Seasons Resort Palm Beach sits at the quiet southern end of the island with a private beach, a spa and an oceanfront position that is more restrained than its famous neighbour. It is the best-run hotel on the island.
Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach
South Palm Beach · 5★ · $$$$
Quiet southern end with the island's best service
Check availabilityThe Colony Hotel occupies a 1926 building a block from Worth Avenue with a courtyard, a pool and a famously yellow-and-white interior. It is the most social address on the island and not on the beach.
The Colony Hotel
Off Worth Avenue · 4★ · $$$
A 1926 courtyard hotel and the island's social address
Check availabilityWhite Elephant Palm Beach sits on the ocean at the northern end in a recently reworked property with a beach club, a pool deck and the most contemporary rooms on the island.
White Elephant Palm Beach
North Palm Beach island · 5★ · $$$$
Most contemporary rooms with a beach club
Check availabilityManalapan, just south
Ten minutes down the coast, on its own stretch of barrier island.
Eau Resort & Spa occupies three hectares of oceanfront with two pools, a large spa and a beach that is emptier than anything on Palm Beach proper. It is the family choice on this coast.
Eau Resort & Spa
Manalapan · 5★ · $$$$
Three hectares of emptier oceanfront with a big spa
Check availabilityWest Palm Beach, across the bridge
The mainland. Restaurants, museums, value, no beach.
The Ben, Autograph Collection sits on Clematis Street in a converted building with a rooftop pool, a good restaurant and the shortest walk to the West Palm nightlife.
The Ben, Autograph Collection
West Palm Beach · 4★ · $$$
Rooftop pool a short walk from Clematis Street
Check availabilityCanopy West Palm Beach - Downtown occupies a tower on the waterfront with rooms looking across the lagoon to the island, a rooftop bar and rates well below anything across the water.
Canopy West Palm Beach - Downtown
West Palm Beach waterfront · 4★ · $$
Rooms across the lagoon to the island at mainland rates
Check availabilityWhat we have left off
The oceanfront condominium buildings that make up most of Palm Beach's coastline are excluded. They are private residences and residence clubs rather than hotels, and between them they account for far more of the island's ocean frontage than every hotel here combined.
What to do
Walk Worth Avenue and, more interestingly, the vias off it: small courtyards of shops that Mizner built to break up the street.
Tour Whitehall, Henry Flagler's 1902 house, which explains how the island came to exist at all. The Norton Museum in West Palm is the better art collection.
Cycle the Lake Trail, which runs most of the length of the island on the lagoon side, past the backs of the great houses.
Eat on the mainland at least once. West Palm's Clematis Street and Rosemary Square have more range and better prices than the island.
The Everglades are ninety minutes west and worth a day.
Practical notes
Palm Beach International is fifteen minutes from the island. Fort Lauderdale is an hour and Miami ninety minutes.
The season runs Thanksgiving to Easter, and rates in January through March are at their highest. May, June, October and November are much better value. July to September is hot, humid and inside hurricane season.
Dress codes on the island are real: several restaurants and clubs expect jackets in season.
Explore 4 & 5 Star Palm Beach Hotels
Questions people actually ask
Island or mainland?
Island for the beach, the shopping and the quiet. West Palm for restaurants and value, five minutes away.
Is Palm Beach worth it out of season?
In summer the island is hot and half closed but the rates are a fraction. For a beach-and-pool trip it works.
How does it compare to Miami?
Quieter, older, more residential and considerably less nightlife. If Miami Beach is the reason you like Florida, this is not it.
How many nights?
Three. Four with an Everglades day or a run down the coast.