Amelia Island is under an hour north of Jacksonville, reachable either fast on I-95 or slowly up the coast on A1A past the Talbot Islands and Kingsley Plantation. The best day trip takes the interstate north and the coast road back.
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.
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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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 Florida state park south of Amelia Island across Nassau Sound, best known for Boneyard Beach — a shoreline strewn with the bleached, salt-killed skeletons of fallen live oaks, one of the most photographed coastal landscapes in the state.
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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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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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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.
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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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The working marina at the foot of Centre Street on the Amelia River, with the shrimp fleet, boat tours and charters, a public boardwalk and the island's best sunset view. The reason downtown Fernandina Beach faces the water it does.
Off this map Big Talbot Island State Park, Little Talbot Island State Park, Kingsley Plantation and Fort George Island
Amelia Island is the best day trip from Jacksonville, and the route you take matters as much as the destination.
Fast: I-95 north, then east on A1A across the Shave Bridge. Under an hour from downtown Jacksonville, 30 to 40 minutes from the airport. This is the sensible outbound.
Slow: A1A up the coast. Longer, considerably prettier, and it passes three things worth stopping for:
Kingsley Plantation and Fort George Island, in the Timucuan Preserve — the oldest surviving plantation house in Florida and, more importantly, a semicircle of tabby cabins built and occupied by enslaved people. About forty minutes from Jacksonville. A hard, necessary visit.
Big Talbot Island and Boneyard Beach — a shoreline strewn with the bleached skeletons of fallen live oaks, the most photographed coastal landscape in northeast Florida.
Little Talbot Island — five miles of undeveloped barrier-island beach with restrooms and picnic facilities.
Take the interstate north and the coast road back. That way you arrive on the island with the day intact and use the drive home for the stops.
Arrive by 9.30 and go straight to Fort Clinch State Park at the northern tip. An 1847 masonry fort you walk through rather than view, at the end of a mile of live-oak canopy, plus two beaches and a fishing pier. Two hours, three if you want the pier.
Lunch downtown. Park once in a free public lot on the edge of the historic district. Eight blocks of Victorian storefronts, twenty-plus kitchens, the working shrimp docks at the bottom of Centre Street. Counter-service seafood if you want to keep moving.
Afternoon on the beach. Main Beach Park is closest to downtown with free parking, restrooms, showers and a playground. Peters Point on the south end has more room.
Sunset on the river. This is the part visitors get backwards. The island faces east — the Atlantic side gets sunrise. Sunset happens over the Amelia River downtown, behind the marina. Be back at the bottom of Centre Street for it.
Dinner downtown, then home. Or head south on A1A in daylight instead and do the Talbots and Kingsley on the way.
Fort Clinch and downtown. Skip the beach — you have beaches in Jacksonville. The fort plus a Victorian port town is the version of Amelia Island you cannot get at home.
An 1847 fort you can climb around. A Victorian port town with fifty blocks on the National Register and no chain retail. A working shrimp fleet you can watch from a restaurant. Free beach parking with restrooms and showers. A marsh you can kayak into. And American Beach, founded in 1935 so that Black Floridians could reach an ocean beach under segregation — twenty minutes that change how the rest of the island reads.
Museums, a zoo, cinemas, a mall, and indoor everything. Which makes the traffic run the other way on a rainy day — see our rainy day page.
Two bridges carry all traffic onto the island. On festival weekends — the Shrimp Festival in early May, the Concours in March — add time, and expect downtown streets to be closed to traffic entirely.
Parking is free downtown and at the city and county beaches; Florida state parks charge per vehicle.
Beach lots fill by late morning in season.
Part of Plan your Amelia Island trip.