Summer Beach

Summer Beach is the stretch of oceanfront between the city of Fernandina Beach and the large planned community at the south end, and it is mostly condominium buildings and one very well-known hotel.

What is here

The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island occupies its own oceanfront parcel here — the island's luxury benchmark and the centre of Concours d'Elegance week each March.

Around it: a cluster of low-to-mid-rise oceanfront and near-oceanfront condominium buildings, most of them in the short-term rental market, plus golf, a village-style shops-and-restaurants pocket, and the Amelia Island Parkway running behind it all.

Who stays here

Families and groups taking a condominium for a week, and Ritz guests. The condominium inventory is the practical draw: two and three bedrooms, a kitchen, a washing machine, and a dune walkover, at a price per head that a hotel cannot match for four or more people.

What it is like

Quiet, green and residential in feel, with pine and palmetto between the buildings and the ocean immediately east. There is no street life. Evenings happen inside your building, at a resort restaurant, or downtown.

The beach here is wide, firm and considerably quieter than the Fernandina city accesses — there is no public parking to speak of, so the people on the sand are the people staying behind it.

What you give up

Walkability to anything other than the sand. Restaurants within walking distance are limited to the resort and village options; a proper choice of dinner means a ten-to-fifteen minute drive north to downtown Fernandina Beach.

Getting around

Amelia Island Parkway and A1A / First Coast Highway are the two north–south routes. Downtown is ten to fifteen minutes north; Peters Point Beachfront Park is the nearest public beach park with facilities, a couple of minutes away.

The island is flat and the Amelia Island Trail provides a paved path along part of A1A, so cycling between the south-end districts is pleasant and practical.

Public beach access

Florida beaches are public below the mean high-water line, so the sand here is public even where the walkovers are not. If you are not staying in Summer Beach, use Peters Point or Scott Road rather than looking for parking among the buildings — there isn't any.

Practical notes

Sea turtle nesting runs roughly May through October, and oceanfront condominium lighting is exactly the issue the rules exist for. Close blinds and shield lights visible from the beach after dark.