Originally, Amelia Island State Park was the only park on my agenda for the day I paid it a visit. What I learned early on was State Parking plans rarely stay as originally planned. I pulled up the map to see where the park was located and if there were any other parks nearby so I could clump several visits into one day. It turned out that my Uncle Barry and Aunt Tracey didn’t live too far from there so I used that as an opportunity to visit them and see a cluster of parks. I asked Uncle Barry if he wanted to go on my State Parking adventure and he kindly accepted. What an amazing day we had.
Whenever I heard Amelia Island I envisioned small, quaint island with a lighthouse in the middle that you could climb. Of course there would be some type of beach nearby but that was never really the highlight in my imagined version of the state park. Although Amelia Island is a beautiful state park, it was nothing like I had imagined. We pulled into the parking lot only to find all of the spaces were occupied. We could have tried to drive on the beach but the terrain looked to be more than my car could handle. We watched from the car as people frolicked along the shore and in the water. It was a perfect place to have a beach day but that was not an activity we were prepared for. After minor contemplation we thought it would be best to move on to the next destination.
Before you visit, make sure you check out the parks website for all of the up-to-date park information: https://www.floridastateparks.org/index.php/amelia-island

