Seven days on Amelia Island covers the island properly, the Cumberland Island ferry, the Talbot islands and Kingsley Plantation, with room for St Augustine. It is also the first length at which the right advice is to leave days empty on purpose, because the weather and the tide will move things whether you plan for it or not.
A 1,400-acre state park on Amelia Island's northern tip holding a well-preserved masonry fort begun in 1847, two beaches, a fishing pier, a mile-long oak-canopy entrance drive, campgrounds and trails. The island's single best half-day out.
Cumberland Island National Seashore sits immediately north of Amelia Island across Cumberland Sound: eighteen miles of undeveloped beach, maritime forest, wild horses and the Dungeness ruins, reached by reserved ferry from St Marys, Georgia.
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Amelia Island's west side is a maze of tidal creeks and salt marsh feeding the Amelia River, with guided kayak and paddleboard trips running from downtown Fernandina Beach and the south end. Tide timing matters more than fitness here.
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The 50-block downtown historic district on Amelia Island's river side, centred on Centre Street between 8th Street and the Fernandina Harbor Marina. Victorian storefronts, the island's densest concentration of restaurants and bars, and the Amelia Island Museum of History.
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A small oceanfront community on Amelia Island's south end, founded in 1935 by the Afro-American Life Insurance Company as a beach where Black Floridians could swim during segregation. Home to NaNa, the tallest dune in Florida, and the A.L. Lewis Museum.
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A National Park Service site in the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, about 40 minutes south of Amelia Island, holding the oldest surviving plantation house in Florida and a semicircle of tabby cabins built and lived in by enslaved people.
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One of the few remaining undeveloped barrier islands in northeast Florida, about 25 minutes south of Amelia Island: five miles of Atlantic beach, maritime forest and marsh trails, a campground, and no development behind the dune.
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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.
About 300 acres of salt marsh, tidal creek and maritime hammock threaded with flat crushed-shell trails between Atlantic Avenue and Jasmine Street in Fernandina Beach. The island's best free wildlife walk, and reliably good for alligators and wading birds.
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The original town site north of modern downtown, laid out on a Spanish plat of 1811 — one of the last towns platted under Spanish rule in the New World. A quiet residential grid around the Plaza San Carlos, with Fort Clinch State Park beyond it.
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Amelia Island's old burial ground north of downtown, established in the Spanish colonial period and still in use. Live oaks, Spanish moss and graves spanning the island's several nationalities — one of the quietest places on the island.
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The island's history museum, housed in the former Nassau County jail on South 3rd Street in downtown Fernandina Beach. Interprets the Isle of Eight Flags story, the Timucua, the railroad and shrimping eras, and runs guided walking tours of the historic district.
Off this map Cumberland Island Day Trip, Kingsley Plantation and Fort George Island, Little Talbot Island State Park
Not more attractions. Slack.
Amelia Island's core — the fort, downtown, the marsh, the south end — is a long weekend. A week adds the trips that need a whole day each and cannot be moved: the Cumberland Island ferry, Kingsley Plantation, St Augustine. And it adds the thing that actually makes a week here work, which is two days with nothing in them.
That is not padding. This is a coast where the tide moves every plan by fifty minutes a day and a thunderstorm rearranges most summer afternoons. A week with seven planned days is a week of small disappointments; a week with five is a week where the weather is somebody else's problem.
Everything else can be decided over breakfast. We hold no confirmed opening hours for any business, museum or park on this island, so a fixed schedule from us would be invented.
Day 1 — downtown. Amelia Island Museum of History first; an hour there makes the whole week legible. Then Centre Street and the historic district, the harbour marina where the shrimp fleet ties up, and the Palace Saloon. Sunset on the river side — the island faces east.
Day 2 — the north end. Fort Clinch State Park: a fort you walk into, a mile of live-oak avenue, two beaches and a pier. Then North Beach and, if the light holds, Old Town and Bosque Bello Cemetery.
Day 3 — Cumberland Island. Whichever day the ferry gave you. Wild horses, undeveloped beach and no facilities to speak of — see the day trip. Take water and food.
Day 4 — empty. Deliberately. Use it for the beach at low tide, or for whatever the weather cancelled.
Day 5 — the marsh. The half most visitors never see: several thousand acres of tidal salt marsh behind the island, invisible from any road. Kayak it an hour either side of high water, or walk Egans Creek Greenway for free with alligators from the path.
Day 6 — south, and off the island. American Beach and the A.L. Lewis Museum, then Amelia Island State Park at the tip. Or keep driving to Kingsley Plantation and the Talbot islands — see the heritage route for how those connect.
Day 7 — empty, or St Augustine. If you have the appetite for one more drive, St Augustine is the obvious one. If you do not, the beach at low water is a better use of a seventh day than another car journey.
A week changes the calculation. Downtown puts you inside the walkable half and within reach of the restaurants; oceanside on Fletcher Avenue puts you on the beach; the south end is quieter, greener and a drive from everything.
For seven nights, the thing that matters most is a kitchen, because we publish no restaurant hours and several kitchens here close days of the week out of season. See where to stay.
Pick the week if you can. November is the driest month of the year at 1.87 inches with an average high of 72°F; April averages 77°F and 3.03 inches. June to September run 5 to 7 inches a month across roughly nine rain days, with a thunderstorm most afternoons and July at 90.7°F — and hurricane season runs June to November, so read hurricane season before booking a late-summer week.
Water temperature at the nearest NOAA sensor, 30 km south at Mayport, runs from about 58°F in February to 85°F in August. A February week is a walking-and-history week, not a swimming one. See weather by month.
Part of Amelia Island itineraries.