Main Beach Park is the family access: free lot, restrooms, boardwalk, playground and the island’s only confirmed seasonal lifeguard. Seaside Park, Peters Point and Burney Park have the same free lot and restrooms with a fraction of the traffic, but no confirmed lifeguard cover.
Fernandina Beach's busiest and most amenity-heavy oceanfront park, at the east end of Atlantic Avenue. Large free parking lot, restrooms, playground, volleyball, and food and mini-golf across the street — the default choice for a family beach day on Amelia Island.
A compact City of Fernandina Beach oceanfront park at the east end of Sadler Road, with a free lot, restrooms, a dune boardwalk and a small playground. The closest full-facility beach to the middle of the island and the usual overflow from Main Beach.
Nassau County's largest south-end beach park, off Fletcher Avenue near Sadler Road's southern reach. Big free lot, restrooms, outdoor showers, picnic pavilions and a long boardwalk over the dunes — the south end's answer to Main Beach, usually with more room.
Details unconfirmed
A Nassau County beach park at American Beach on the island's south end, with a free lot, restrooms, picnic pavilions and a dune walkover. The practical parking and facilities for anyone visiting American Beach and the NaNa dune.
Two beaches inside Fort Clinch State Park at Amelia Island's northern tip: Atlantic surf on the east side and calmer water by the jetties on the north, plus a fishing pier looking across Cumberland Sound to Georgia. Inside the park entry fee.
Details unconfirmed
The stretch of Amelia Island shoreline north of Main Beach toward the Fort Clinch jetties, reached from the northern Fletcher Avenue accesses. Wide, quiet sand with a working-port view, no facilities, and the island's strongest currents near the jetties.
A small Nassau County beach access off Scott Road on the island's oceanside, with a modest free lot and a dune walkover but no restrooms or showers. One of the accesses used for permitted beach driving.
Details unconfirmed
Two hundred undeveloped acres at the island's southern tip on Nassau Sound: beach, dune, marsh and maritime forest, with no buildings and no lifeguards. The only Florida state park offering guided horseback riding on the beach.
Roughly two dozen small public beach accesses spaced along South and North Fletcher Avenue in Fernandina Beach, most with a dune walkover and a handful of roadside spaces and nothing else. The way onto the sand if you are staying oceanside.
Details unconfirmed
Two things decide a family beach day here, and only one of them is which access you pick.
| Access | Parking | Restrooms | Boardwalk | Playground | Lifeguards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main Beach Park | Free lot | Yes | Yes | Yes | Seasonal |
| Seaside Park | Free lot | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Peters Point | Free lot | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Burney Park | Free lot | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed | None |
| Fort Clinch beach | Paid lot | Yes | Yes | No | None |
| North Beach | Street | No | Not confirmed | No | None |
"Not confirmed" means exactly that. We have fields for these and they are empty, so we leave them empty rather than filling them in — for a parent choosing on the basis of supervision, a guessed "yes" is worse than a blank.
Main Beach Park is the answer if a lifeguard and a playground matter more than quiet. It is also the busiest access on the island and the lot fills on summer weekends and festival days. If it is full, Peters Point or Seaside Park rather than circling — see Main Beach or Peters Point.
The tidal range is 6 to 7.4 ft on a very flat beach. At low water the sea retreats a long way and leaves wadeable shallows over the exposed sandbars — warm, calm, ankle-to-knee deep. That is the single best thing on this island for small children, and it exists for a few hours twice a day.
At high tide on a narrow access there is barely a beach at all.
So plan the day around the tide, not the clock. It makes more difference than the access you choose.
One warning that matters: on a sandbar, the flood comes in behind you rather than at you. Do not let the water get between you and the beach.
Hard-packed and flat, not soft and steeply banked. A pushchair rolls on it, a wagon rolls on it, and a child who falls over does not disappear into it. If you have used a Gulf-coast sugar-sand beach with a buggy, this is a materially easier experience.
| Month | Ocean |
|---|---|
| January | 57.9°F |
| April | 71.2°F |
| June | 80.8°F |
| August | 84.6°F |
| October | 76.0°F |
June through October holds 80°F or better for most of the window, and the sea peaks in August. April looks like beach weather and is not, in the water. See water temperature by month.
Most of the island's thirteen miles is unguarded at all times of year. Main Beach is the exception, not the rule, and even there the cover is seasonal. Arm's reach with small children, guarded or not. And read rip currents before you swim — a falling tide with surf running is the setup that catches people here.
Turtle nesting, 1 May to 31 October. Fill in every hole you dig, flatten the sandcastles, take everything off the beach overnight and keep lights off the sand. A hatchling that falls into a hole does not get out — which is a genuinely good thing to explain to a child. See sea turtles.
Summer afternoons. Near-daily thunderstorms from June to September, and 90.7°F in July. Beach in the morning; indoors from mid-afternoon.
Part of Amelia Island beaches.