Most of the best things to do on Amelia Island are free: the city and county beach accesses have free parking, the Egans Creek Greenway marsh trails cost nothing and have resident alligators, and downtown Fernandina Beach and Old Town's 1811 Spanish grid are free to walk.
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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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.
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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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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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.
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 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.
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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 surprising amount of Amelia Island costs nothing, and it is not the leftovers — the free list includes two of the three things we would send a first-time visitor to do.
This is the big one. The City of Fernandina Beach and Nassau County beach parks have free lots: Main Beach Park, Seaside Park, Peters Point Beachfront Park, Burney Park. Restrooms and outdoor showers at the larger ones, also free.
The Fletcher Avenue numbered accesses are free too, with a handful of roadside spaces each.
Thirteen miles of wide, firm Atlantic beach, at no cost, with facilities. That is not the norm on the Florida coast.
(The exceptions: Florida state parks charge per vehicle. Fort Clinch and Amelia Island State Park are worth paying for, but they are not the free option.)
Three hundred acres of tidal salt marsh, creek and maritime hammock with flat crushed-shell trails, several trailheads, and no entry fee at all.
Alligators are resident in the creek and ponds and are frequently visible from the trail. Wading birds throughout — egrets, herons, ibis, roseate spoonbills in season. Otters, gopher tortoises, a long bird list.
For a visitor, seeing a wild alligator from a safe distance on a free trail beats most ticketed wildlife attractions on the peninsula. Go in the first two hours of light or the last two; midday is hot, shadeless and quiet.
Eight blocks of Centre Street and the surrounding cross streets: fifty blocks of Victorian and Queen Anne commercial buildings on the National Register, independent shops, the Fernandina Harbor Marina and the working shrimp docks at the bottom.
Walking it costs nothing and takes an afternoon if you do the cross streets properly. The historical markers do a lot of the interpretive work the museum charges for.
Free, and the best show on the island after sunrise. The downtown waterfront faces west across the Amelia River. Stand on the marina boardwalk rather than paying for a rooftop table and you get the same sky.
Old Town, north of downtown, is laid out on a Spanish plat of 1811 — the original town site, now a quiet residential grid around the Plaza San Carlos, with historical markers.
Bosque Bello Cemetery nearby is an old live-oak-and-Spanish-moss burial ground spanning the island's several nationalities, and one of the quietest places on Amelia Island.
Both free, both almost unvisited.
Park free at Burney Park and walk the historic community founded in 1935 by the Afro-American Life Insurance Company so that Black Floridians could reach an ocean beach under segregation. Historical markers, the protected NaNa dune behind the beach, and the A.L. Lewis Museum a short walk away — the museum itself is small, volunteer-supported and may ask a donation.
A paved multi-use path along part of A1A. Free to walk or cycle, flat, and it connects a good deal of the oceanside strip.
Worth listing separately because it is the island's single best free thing and it requires only an alarm clock. The Atlantic side faces east, the numbered accesses put you on the sand a minute from the car, and at 6.30 in summer you will have the beach to yourself.
Florida state park entry (Fort Clinch, Amelia Island State Park) and the fort's own small charge; the Amelia Island Museum of History; guided kayak trips and horseback riding; the Cumberland Island ferry; and any lighthouse tour if one is running.
We do not publish the figures because they are set by the state and by operators and they change — check the official page.
Part of Things to do on Amelia Island.