A large share of Amelia Island's accommodation is condominium and house rentals, concentrated in the south-end communities and along the oceanfront. For a family or a week-plus stay they are the value option, but groceries mean a fifteen-minute drive to the mainland.
The large planned resort community occupying much of Amelia Island's south end, now largely operated as the Omni Amelia Island Resort. Golf, villas, marsh-side trails, a nature centre and oceanfront behind the dune, inside a gated development.
Details unconfirmed
The resort half of Amelia Island: gated communities, golf, the Omni and Ritz-Carlton properties, and the quietest stretches of beach. Roughly everything south of Sadler Road down to Amelia Island State Park and the Nassau Sound bridge.
Details unconfirmed
An oceanfront condominium and resort district on Amelia Island's south end, between the Fernandina city limits and the Amelia Island Plantation area, containing the Ritz-Carlton and a cluster of rental condominium buildings behind the dune.
Details unconfirmed
The Atlantic side of the city of Fernandina Beach: Fletcher Avenue, Main Beach Park, Seaside Park, the numbered beach accesses, and the mid-size hotels and rentals behind the dune. Five minutes from downtown and directly on the sand.
Details unconfirmed
The island's largest full-service resort, occupying a big oceanfront and marsh parcel on the south end within the former Amelia Island Plantation. Golf, tennis, pools, a nature centre, multiple restaurants and direct beach access behind the dune.
The Nassau County mainland immediately west of Amelia Island, across the Shave Bridge: the island's supermarkets, chain retail, big-box stores and the I-95 interchange, plus the route to Jacksonville airport and the Cumberland Island ferry.
Details unconfirmed
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
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.
Off this map Yulee and the Mainland
For a family, or for any stay longer than about four nights, a rental is usually the right answer on Amelia Island — and the reasons are arithmetic rather than aesthetic.
Two or three bedrooms, a kitchen, a washing machine and a living room, at a price per head that a hotel cannot match once you are four or more people. Add breakfast and one meal a day cooked at home, on an island where restaurant bills add up quickly, and the gap widens.
The south end — the former Amelia Island Plantation, Summer Beach, and the surrounding communities — holds most of it. Condominium buildings, villas on golf courses or the marsh, and houses. Many sit within walking distance of the beach, some on it.
The oceanfront, along Fletcher Avenue in Fernandina Beach, holds condominium buildings and houses closer to downtown.
Downtown and inland have houses, fewer and more variable.
This is the single most common problem with south-end rentals, so read it before you book.
Amelia Island Plantation is the development. The Omni Amelia Island Resort is an operation inside it. Much of the villa inventory within the development is separately owned and rented through a range of management companies and platforms.
Which means: two listings in the same building, at the same price, can come with completely different access to resort facilities — pools, beach clubs, golf rates, the nature centre. Some rentals include resort privileges, some do not, and the listing does not always make it clear.
Ask explicitly, in writing, what your booking includes before you pay. "It's at the Plantation" is not an answer to that question.
If you have a kitchen, you will want to fill it. The supermarkets are on the mainland.
A proper grocery shop means crossing the Shave Bridge to Yulee — about fifteen minutes from downtown, twenty to twenty-five from the south end. The island's own food retail is limited.
Plan that as a deliberate trip on arrival day, before you unpack, rather than discovering it at eight in the evening with hungry children. Petrol is cheaper over there too.
Beach access. Is there a private walkover, or do you use a public access, and how far is it? "Steps to the beach" covers a lot of ground.
Which floor, and is there a lift? Relevant with luggage, children or anyone who does not want three flights.
What is actually in the kitchen. Rentals vary from fully equipped to a kettle and two pans.
Parking. How many spaces, and are they assigned?
Cleaning and resort fees, and whether they are in the quoted price.
Minimum stays, which are common and longer in peak weeks.
Pets — see our pet-friendly page. Policies can differ unit to unit in the same building.
If you are in an oceanfront unit between roughly May and October, close your blinds after dark and turn off anything visible from the beach. Hatchlings orient toward the brightest horizon, and a lit balcony sends them inland, where they die. This is what the oceanfront lighting ordinances are for.
Months ahead for spring, the Shrimp Festival in early May, Concours week in March, and the winter holidays. Rental inventory on this island is finite and the good units repeat-book.
Nightly rates. They move daily and vary by unit, and any figure here would be wrong. Nor ratings, ours or anyone else's — see our editorial policy.
Part of Where to stay on Amelia Island.