Summertime Fun: Yelps Top 5 Best Beaches in Missouri to Visit

Grab your towels and sand buckets, according to Yelp, these are the five best beaches in Missouri that you need to visit this summer.

The summer heat is here and if you're looking to cool off Missouri is home to some of the best beaches in the nation.

Moonshine Beach

Located in Branson is the perfect spot to cool off on those hot summer days. It's set just on the north end of Table Rock Dam on Table Rock Lake. The park is open 9 am - 9 pm through September 15th.

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The Fugitive Beach

Many visitors at the beach say this is a resort pool experience. With lots of activities to do besides swimming. The main attraction is cliff diving (NO THANK YOU). Talk about facing your biggest fears, but if you're into that this is the place for all you thrill seekers.

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Smithville Lake

A much more lake-like beach, Smithville Lake allows you to set up camp and enjoy the surroundings of the lake. This lake is just located outside Kansas City, so you can have a fun weekend by going to the lake during the day and enjoying the lights and sounds of the city at night. The best of both worlds.

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There are a few local lakes that didn't make the list such as the Mark Twain Lake and Wyaconda State Park. So you don't have to go too far to enjoy a day a the lake.

LOOK: Here are the best lake towns to live in

Many of the included towns jump out at the casual observer as popular summer-rental spots--the Ozarks' Branson, Missouri, or Arizona's Lake Havasu--it might surprise you to dive deeper into some quality-of-life offerings beyond the beach and vacation homes. You'll likely pick up some knowledge from a wide range of Americana: one of the last remaining 1950s-style drive-ins in the Midwest; a Florida town that started as a Civil War veteran retirement area; an island boasting some of the country's top public schools and wealth-earners right in the middle of a lake between Seattle and Bellevue; and even a California town containing much more than Johnny Cash's prison blues.

Gallery Credit: Peter Richman