Colorado beaches named one of the least safe in America, which is hilarious for a State 1,000 miles from the ocean
Aug 18, 2026, 8:25 AM
Congratulations, Colorado. We don’t have an ocean. We don’t have salt water. We don’t have tides or sea turtles. But we do, apparently, have one of the 10 least safe beaches in the entire United States.
Grand Lake Beach, tucked into the Rocky Mountains at 8,400 feet of elevation in Grand County, landed at No. 7 on a new ranking from The Action Network that analyzed crime rates across 500 popular beach zip codes to determine which have the highest risk of theft, robbery, vehicle theft and burglary. That puts a Colorado mountain lake beach ahead of Big Sur, California, and Lincoln City, Oregon, two places that are, you know, next to an actual ocean.
The ranking, reported by USA Today, compared property crime rates to estimated daily visitor counts at each beach. And while more than 92% of recorded incidents nationally were non-violent, mostly involving unattended bags and rental car break-ins, that’s cold comfort if your wallet disappears while you’re floating in a landlocked alpine lake surrounded by ponderosa pines and wondering how you ended up on the same list as Santa Monica.
For context: the safest beaches in the country include New Smyrna Beach in Florida, Cape Cod in Massachusetts, Sanibel Island and Siesta Key in Florida, and Waikiki in Hawaii, all places with warm sand, crashing waves, and zero chance of seeing a moose walk out of the tree line during your swim. The most dangerous? North Jetty in Ocean Shores, Washington, followed by Folly Beach, South Carolina, and Newport Beach, California.
So the next time you’re packing for a day at Grand Lake, maybe leave the valuables locked in the trunk.
