Next time you're at the beach, take a look around: You may spy a mermaid with long, tangled hair or a dragon with pointy ears and flared nostrils. If you get lucky, you'll come across an actual castle ...

“Use your architect mind,” says Sudarsan Pattnaik, an award-winning sand sculptor from Puri, a seaside city in India. If you’re building from memory, first envision your castle. For Pattnaik, who is ...

This article was originally featured on The Conversation. If you want to understand why some sandcastles are tall and have intricate structures while others are nearly shapeless lumps of sand, it ...

Janel Hawkins spends hours building intricate structures — and destroys them not long after. Such is the life of a professional sand castle builder. As the owner of Sand Castle University, she spends ...

As building blocks go, pancakes fall low on the list. But a successful sand castle, I learned, starts with pancakes. A tall stack. Turns out those plastic molds I had packed with sand — only to dump ...

Remember how much fun it was to take a plastic pail and shovel to the beach and spend hours in the sand building sandcastles? I remember being so upset when the waves rushed on shore to devour my ...

Tahoe Tessie’s not in the water, she’s on Lakeside beach. But don’t look for a green scaly monster. This one’s made of sand. A group of children worked on the beginnings of a dragon Tuesday under the ...

This is part of our great big guide to the DC area’s best beaches. From the surf scene in Virginia Beach to Ocean City’s expansive boardwalk, we found the best bites and activities (yes, even in ...

(USA TODAY) -- When it comes to summer and time at the beach, building sand castles is a terrific way to spend the day. If your sand castle building inspiration dries up, head to any of these sand ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Janel Hawkins spends hours building intricate structures — and destroys them not long after. Such is the life of a professional ...