St. Joseph Peninsula State Park

Its a very remote place – at the far western end of Florida’s Forgotten Coast.  Its a narrow spit of land that sticks out into the Gulf like a skinny fore arm.  The nearest grocery store and restaurants are 20 miles away.  Cell service is spotty and unreliable.  Most of the peninsula is protected land, hence the lack of people and services.  But St. Joseph Peninsula is home to a lovely state park and the best beaches you can find anywhere.

This is our second visit to St. Joseph Peninsula State Park.  I like this place because of its remoteness and beautiful unspoiled natural setting.  Its loaded with birds and wildlife.  The beach is one of the best in the US with miles of unspoiled and undeveloped white sand beach.  The bay side is loaded with shells and marine life.  It’s also a great place to unplug and just enjoy the setting as there’s no TV signals and very limited cell service.

The state park has two campgrounds – Gulf Breeze which is smaller and sits right near the beach and Shady Pines which sits back from the beach in a pine hummock.  All the sites have water and electric hook-ups.  There’s bath houses with showers and laundry and there’s a dump station.  Its one of Florida’s top state parks and a popular place for campers who want remote beach side camping.

We spent 4 days in the Gulf Breeze section.  I prefer this section because I like hearing the pounding surf at night and watching sunsets.  The weather was less than perfect with some low temps, overcast skies, and morning fog.  But we did get some hours of nice sunny weather and had plenty of opportunities to enjoy the park.  I focused on some biking taking pictures, kite flying, and relaxing. The wife joined me in relaxing and did lots of shelling on the bay side of the park.

Here are some pictures of or stay.

Here’s a short video of me kite flying on the beach.

After spending 4 relaxing days by the ocean, we said goodbye to The Forgotten Coast and continued to move west on the panhandle.