There are many destinations that say they have the best beaches. But only some can say it’s official. St. George island, off the gulf coast of Florida, has been enjoying that designation of “Best Beach in the U.S.” since the venerable Dr. Beach declared it so in June of 2023. Since then, the Island has been welcoming visitors to enjoy what they’ve known for years – that St. George is a great place to go for a beach vacation. After checking it out personally, I can see what the appeal was for Dr. Beach. Here, I’ll share ways RealFoodTraveler.com readers can make the most of their time on the island (including Editor’s Tips). Be sure to watch our YouTube video below to see St. George Island in action! 

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Editor’s Pick Guide to St. George Island for the Best Beach Days

Quick facts:

St. George Island is located a short drive from both Tallahassee and Panama City, situated along Florida’s Panhandle. From the mainland, access the island by crossing the four-mile Bryant Patton Bridge.

• The island is so narrow (28 miles long and no wider than one mile at any point), you can take in the sunrise on one side and sunset on the other. On the south side, it’s bordered by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and on the north by Apalachicola Bay, considered to be one of the most productive commercial and sport fisheries in the state.
• The waters are clean and pristine, making all of the fish and seafood better including oysters, grouper, snapper and shrimp.
• There are no high-rise buildings in St. George (unless you want to count the historic lighthouse).
• George Island State Park is currently working towards designation as an International Dark Sky Park.
• In 2023, Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman, aka Dr. Beach, named St. George Island State Park his number one pick for the Best Beach in the U.S. for the year. Dr. Beach has reviewed and rated beaches throughout the world for more than 30 years. In other words, he knows of what he speaks when it comes to beaches!

Where to stay on St. George Island:

A variety of lodging options are available on the island and many are through Collins Vacation Rentals, a company owned by Ms. Alice Collins, who, along with her team, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the company in 2023. With nearly 300 rental properties available from one end of the island to the other, there are plenty of options. Our group had the opportunity to stay in multi-story beach houses which would be ideal for a single family or several families, friends, or groups of any kind. Depending on the size of the houses, there are multiple bedrooms and bathrooms and large livingroom-dining-kitchen spaces which means you could have as much together time as you wanted but still have enough places to steal off to for some solitude. Several have swimming pools and outdoor cooking and dining areas and many are on or very near the beach. What a treat it was seeing people fishing, swimming, strolling the beach, taking pictures of the shorebirds and views. It was so incredibly peaceful and beautiful with all of the comforts of home (and then some). I also enjoyed the names of each property, perfect for St. George Island including: Heaven by the Sea, Beachfront Benefits, Aisle of Palms and my favorite, the Chill Inn.
Editor’s Tip: Rent a bike (or golf cart) from Island Adventures and enjoy tooling around the neighborhood, seeing the variety of architecture, colors, and landscaping.

Images from one of the beach houses (and two smaller examples, bottom right) you can rent through Collins Vacation Rentals, called “Headed West.”

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Where to eat and drink:

Aunt Ebby’s Ice Cream has been serving ginormous, hand-dipped ice cream out of their cute, colorful shop since 1993. They are very generous with their scoops!

Captain’s Corner Store & Deli is great for grabbing a quick sandwich, salad, chips and sweet to take with you on your adventures. It’s also the place to stop if you forgot some essentials.

Harry A’s Bar & Grill has a colorful exterior that lured us in. There, while enjoying some of the year-round live music they offer, we gobbled up their famous Smoked Tuna Dip, wings with a variety of sauces and their Smash Burgers.

Mango Mike’s is an airy tiki-themed, family-friendly restaurant and sports bar with an outdoor deck. Be sure to try their oysters served a variety of ways including Smoked BBQ with sauce and bacon and Boot Leg with moonshine bacon, chives and parmesan cheese. Their grilled Mahi Mahi Sandwich was delicious.

Paddy’s Raw Bar sells local, farm raised oysters and locally caught seafood except their Alaskan crab legs. There was a former oysterman shucking oysters for us the night we were there. He shucks those oysters like the pro his is, super-fast. He said that every bag of oysters tells you where they come from, even down to what time they were harvested. We were told that the place is hopping in the summer and, when people come but can’t get a seat, they order food to go and join a line of cars sitting in the parking lot.

Private Chef Ian Williams is the man to call when cooking, even in the great kitchens of the rental houses, feels like more than you want to do (we get it). You can hire Ian, owner and chef at Your Table! Your Chef to provide fine dining experiences and casual ones too. He makes everything from scratch including bread. Treat yourself to a dinner enjoyed at your beach house, especially if you have a special occasion to celebrate.

The Beach Pit has been combining Texas style BBQ (they smoke their own meats onsite), with fresh seafood for more than 25 years. Favorite items among the locals are the pulled pork, smoked turkey breast, whole flounder served blackened, fried shrimp, Southern potato salad (with mayo and mustard) and homemade bourbon pecan pie. Dine inside or out on the screened-in, dog-friendly patio.

Editor’s Tip: Be sure to have smoked fish dip while in St. George. It’s one of the authentic, popular dishes there, served by many restaurants, each with their own twist, including the type of fish used.

A sampling of the delicious food you can get from local restaurants on St. George including, left-to-right, Mango Mike’s, Beach Pit raw oysters and grilled fish; Harry A’s smoked tuna dip; Mango Mike’s baked oysters; Chef Ian’s surf & turf; Harry A’s smash burger and onion rings and Aunt Ebby’s ice cream. Photos by Courtney Drake-McDonough.

Things to do on St. George Island:

Visit the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve which combines a very well-laid out and creative educational area with outdoor trails that lead to the beach. In the visitor’s center, we learned that the environment has three kinds of water – “fresh” from the river, “salty” from the ocean and “brackish” where the river meets the sea. A video, a beautiful room-long mural, displays, activities, and tanks of living creatures representing the three types of salinity, help visitors better understand and appreciate the area and the life within it. And, of course, staff members are on hand to answer any questions. Try to make this one of your first stops when visiting the Island to set the stage for everything else you’ll see and enjoy.

The Reserve is deep in the shady tupelo and cypress swamps of the floodplain and encompasses 246,766 acres of public lands and waters including 52 miles of the lower river, most of Apalachicola Bay, two barrier islands and part of a third. The area was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Region in 1983.
Editor’s Tip: Don’t skip watching the video that’s available. It helps tie together everything you’ll be seeing and experiencing.

Take a boat tour with one of two different companies that take people out for sightseeing, fishing, sunset and seashell-seeking trips. St. George Island Charters is run by Captain Krista Miller and Bay View Charters of SGI is run by Captain Wes McCall. Both took our group to Little St. George Island which has plentiful and unique seashells and loads of pelicans (but no bathroom). There are no buildings – just beach, ocean, shells, some trees, rocks and a bit of shipwreckage.
Editor’s Tip: Bring an empty food storage container with you for shells you’ll collect. That way, they won’t get crushed in your suitcase.

St. George Island Lighthouse & Museum provides the most famous landmark on the island. The lighthouse has had a tumultuous history, originally built in 1833, rebuilt in 1848 after being relocated, then damaged in a storm in 1852. It was listing (tilting) in 2005 and fell in a storm. The replica standing today opened in 2008 and is next to a replica of the Lighthouse Keepers Cottage, built in 2011. That building is a gift shop and museum that presents stories of the lightkeepers and their families, real items they used and the story of the many lives/versions of the lighthouse.
Editor’s Tip: Even if your knees can’t handle the 92 wooden-steps and eight-rung ladder climb to the lantern room at the top of the lighthouse, you’ll get great photos from the ground up to those waving.

Stop into Sugar Kingdom for a world of candy for a sweet treat. You’ll find retro favorites and clever new creations. It’s just down the street from the Lighthouse & Museum so you can reward yourself for all that stairclimbing. You can’t miss the building – its colorful exterior will draw you in.

Places to visit include, left-to-right Apalachicola National Estuarian Research Reserve visitor’s center and path; award-winning St. George Island State Park; St. George Island lighthouse and lighthouse keeper’s museum: boat ride; and Sugar Kingdom. Photos by Courtney Drake-McDonough.

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Where to have the best beach days on St. George Island:

Dr. Julian G. Bruce St. George Island State Park is about two hours from anywhere so it’s less visited. The ecosystem is biodiverse and it transitions from grasslands to sandy beaches. There are dark skies because it’s so underdeveloped and far from metropolitan areas. You can see the Milkey Way! By day, there is great bird-watching because it’s a great flyway for birds and butterflies. There are nesting shorebirds and sea turtles. Recreation-wise, you can have beach time, fishing, kayaks, canoeing, shelling, standup paddleboarding and hike nature trails. See a snippet of the bird-watching scene in our video below.

Dr. Beach comes in unannounced and looks at a wide variety of criteria including distance to metro areas, how clean the water and beach are, what the sand is comprised of, plus how eco-friendly and family-friendly too. St. George had been in the top 10 in years past but 2023-2024 was the first time they were named number one.

Get to Know the Loggerhead Sea Turtles but from a distance. Loggerheads and green turtles are some of the most important residents of St. George Island – for the time they are there. Females return to their hatching grounds to nest on the beach and lay 80-150 eggs in each, between May and November every year. We got to meet Kimberly Alexis, aka the Turtle Lady, who, along with her team of fellow St. George Island Turtle Volunteers, divide up the beach into 10 or so mile-and-a-half sections and walk it every morning at dawn, looking for new nests, which get clearly marked with a “Do Not Disturb” sign. Volunteers check them for signs of disturbance and for hatchlings. They do this until the last baby turtle has made it into the water.

Visitors can help with the conservation efforts by being aware of nests when you’re on the beach and shoreline. Sea turtles need dark, quiet beaches to nest successfully. Each house, whether privately owned or a rental, has special outdoor lights to prevent the turtles from getting disoriented since they normally look for light on the horizon to know which way to go.
Editor’s tip: If you’re traveling with kids and happen to see Kimberly or one of the volunteers, it’s okay to ask them questions. When kids see Kimberly, whom they know as The Turtle Lady, they often walk with her while she is on her patrols, learning more about the turtles and the ecosystem.

St. George island, Florida is a treasure, where it’s easy to live like a local and enjoy all of the reasons the residents are so loyal to the place. For those who live there year-round, it’s a tight-knit, supportive community. For many Floridians, it’s where they’ve gone for vacation for years.  And for the rest of us visitors, it’s a little slice of beach heaven.

For more information about visiting St. George Island, Collins Vacation Rentals is a wealth of information to get you started.

-Story and photos by Courtney Drake-McDonough, Publisher and Managing Editor of RealFoodTraveler.com.

Use our Real Food Travel affiliate links to plan your trip: Hotels.com and Expedia.com. While these links do not, in any way, change your search, reservation or pricing experience, we may receive a small commission on purchases.

Please note: I visited St. George Island as part of a tour set up for food- and travel-writing journalists to facilitate being able to write about the destination. The majority of the trip was hosted, as is common practice but does not sway how we inform our readers about the opportunities that await them.

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