I carry a serrated Spyderco Caribbean sometimes. It's my favorite beach knife for rescuing buoys from tangles of rope. It cuts through thick rope like butter. It's also good for blackberry canes and certain other things. The amount of cutting power in a nearly 4 inch serrated blade is impressive. It keeps cutting when dull too although I try not to let it get too dull because it is a little more work to bring back the edge on the Spyderco rods. Serrations have their downside though. It's not great for landscape fabric, plastic soil bags or carving wood.
I like Benchmade knives a lot but it's hard for me to carry anything but a Spyderco. Once I got used to the thumb hole it was hard to go back to anything else. They're one of the few knives that I can easily open one handed while wearing gloves and the knives themselves are functional, comfortable, durable and fun to fidget with. I also like that they offer certain knives in tool steels like M4, Rex45, etc. Stainless is nice and probably the best option for the average user but you give up a lot by going with a Chromium based steel and as long as you take care of your knife the rust factor even for me living in a coastal rain forest isn't that bad. I've bought and sold quite a few knives in the last decade but the one that consistently ends up back in my pocket is the Spyderco PM2.
