Gulf Islands National Seashore FL

For all you snowbirds that don’t want to return to the frigid north yet, but need to at least start the journey, I recommend Gulf Islands National Seashore – Fort Pickens area (just outside of Pensacola, FL). It has soft white sand beaches with emerald water, a fort to tour as well as numerous military batteries, lots of bicycle opportunities, a fishing pier, and nesting osprey and Great Blue Herons right next to the campground. The campground is basically a line-them-up type but there is decent space between each rig. The bathhouse in E loop looks brand new and is well kept. The camp store is only open on weekends so shop first. This is a National Park so those with the Federal Pass get in free ($8.00 otherwise) with $13.00 per night camping fees for water electric ($26 otherwise). You are allowed to take shells and driftwood. There are trees in the campground but you will get a lot of sun in most sites. It is a short walk along a boardwalk to the beach or you can drive to the public beach with accessible bathhouse and picnic shelter and park just inside the first dune. A 15-20 minute drive gets you to Pensacola Beach and Gulf Breeze with lots of stores. Another 15 gets you to Naval Air Station Pensacola with an awesome free Naval Aviation Museum, Lighthouse and another fort. We have been around 50-60 at night and 75-80 during the day but we are going to drop into the 40s tonight so this is not the sit and sweat Florida weather but it beats the heck out of those single digits up north.

We spent 8 days there last summer and thoroughly enjoyed it--except for the rain. It was July and 7 of the 8 days had rain. We stayed in A Loop and there were some trees between the sites. If you go, we found the sites 24, 26 and 40 were the best in A Loop.

Glad you guys enjoyed it. We loved Fort Pickens and all the Civil War history.

Safe travels Holly and John.

Judi

Thank you Judi! We couldn't get into Loop A but it did look like the better spots. We came in after a big rainstorm so there was a lot of standing water. It drained off in time for it to rain again. We watched the neighbor's stuff float by this morning but it is a matter of attitude - how often do you get a moat around your castle? The concrete pad keeps the rig high and dry. The water is already draining off and the sun is due out again just in time for us to leave tomorrow. We did have two gorgeous days to explore here so we're happy. I am so impressed at how you track all the site numbers. We can't even remember what site we're on while we're sitting on it.