If you're looking for beach, you have to walk the beach. Standing on the pier and watching others walk on the beach isn't a good to understand how the sand feels.

Talking to people on an online forum with the hopes that they can tell you what a place is like, is just setting yourself up for disappointment.

You will be the one living in a place, make sure you take the time to carefully pick your personal paradise.

You can do lots of research these days without leaving your home. One of the first places that I visited was the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce Website. There is a wealth of good information in any Chamber of Commerce site. Once we got to the area, we stopped by the actual office. We got some great maps and materials to help us understand the area.

Depending on the area, you might also pick up a tremendous amount of information in the local tourist bureau. The next best source is searching out people willing to talk to you about their experiences. Finding those people is not very hard in small towns. One of the best ways to get some local information is to stay in a Bed & Breakfast and talk to the owners. Most B&B owners survive less than a decade but they become intimately involved in their local communities. We had great success getting information from inn keepers.

Finally don't forget your real estate agent. Once you find one that meets your needs, start asking questions and collecting materials that the real estate agent will gladly provide you. Most real estate agents really love what they do. They enjoy helping people find the right place to live. Very few can afford to be the type of person who wants to be the last one to move into paradise.

Another great place for information is epodunk which has profiles of 25,000 communities. Of course if you are looking for maps, Google Maps is a good place to start. There might be a little bias in the location that comes up when you navigate to Google Maps through that link. North Carolina has tremendous variety, as does Virginia. I have to give the nod to North Carolina for its beaches.