Tybee Island was the first…and last…annual family trip that was fully driven. While my husband, Dennis is an excellent driver, we Diersing girls do not make excellent passengers. #AllTheCarSickness
Now listen, I’m a big big fan of the culture, architecture, music, history, and food that you can find in Georgia. I am not, however, a fan of the bugs.
I suggest you invest in a few methods of bug bite prevention.
Also, never go outside at dusk because THOSE mosquitos will just laugh at your deet sprays. I’m not kidding. Learn from my mistakes.
With each vacation, I’m going to share my Google Maps List of all the places we ate (with my reviews) as well as the Amazon list of things I either bought for that trip or items added after talking with either locals or other vacation goers.
Here’s my Amazon Must Haves – Beach
Here’s my Google Map List – Tybee Island
This blog post will also have all the pictures you can stomach.
This trip was in 2021 and I was more geared towards taking pictures of Emma for her Senior year, so most of the images I have that aren’t “mom cell shots” are Senior pictures.
Now before we talk about all the things I liked, I’d like to HIGHLY recommend you do not stay on the actual beach at Tybee Island unless you’re ok with the crowds. We noticed that central and southern island were more for the party crowd, while the north end was much quieter!
We went with an AirBNB that was mostly “just fine”. It was a beautiful house but an insane amount of stairs, not quite close enough to the beach to walk with a toddler, and no convenience of a front desk to call about the plethora of small issues we ran in to. This was one of the last trips where I decided to steer far far away from AirBNB properties. I’ll go over that in a future blog!
Our Tybee Island trip was geared towards staying on the North end of the island, so I can’t say much to what the center and south ends hold (aside from a quick trip to get some delicious pizza from Lighthouse Pizza!). With this being a trip with my parents, we knew food, beach, and ocean were the main three focuses.
We are typically morning beach people. The family gets up early, heads straight to the beach, stays until it’s too hot to be there, then we go inland and adventure around. Tybee Beach has great waves and really cool creature sightings, but almost nothing for shells or teeth. Our trip was in July, so I’m not sure if time of year has anything to do with results. I’m going to guess it does, since I know seasons and weather make a difference in your shell finds on the Gulf Coast around Sanibel Island.
We didn’t end up going, but I’d like to mention the Tybee Island Light Station & Museum looked very interesting (and is an excellent map marker on where to park for good beach access!)
Emma, Austyn, Dennis, and I spent one day doing pictures at the ocean and around locations we spotted with good texture/views and another at Wormsloe Historic Site with all the kids! Here are those images!
Dennis’ favorite was visiting Fort Pulaski, but apparently I only took video (which I can’t add to a blog) so here’s one screenshot of a video to at least put something here. This is an employee doing a presentation on the uniform, firearms, and jobs of the soldiers that lived at this fort. It was incredibly informative, but be warned, if you have little ones that are scared of loud noises, they do fire the rifles and they are just as loud as a modern one….Meadow was NOT thrilled!
Visually, Wormsloe Historic Site was my favorite. There was a mild hiking path (definitely not wheelchair or stroller friendly) that barely gets “hiking” credit if it weren’t for some areas being pretty overgrown and requiring some stepping over large roots and ducking under branches and trees. Again, this was a location filled with information. Tons of signage discussing native plants, animals, bugs, and fish. There were also the ruins of a house with information towards the end of our hike, but it could easily be the beginning of a short hike if you just go that route.
Me being a foodie…I really enjoyed all the options of Tybee Island. We were within walking distance of The Sugar Shack and I still think about those breakfast sandwiches(picture below)! Don’t be put off about some of the Google Reviews, the food is great, you’ll just have to wait a little bit for your food sometimes. We noticed only one man working when we arrived, so we expected a small wait…and it WAS a small wait.
Another favorite spot was Savannah Praline Company! The ice cream options were so clever and interesting and ALL the flavors we had (over many days) were excellent. I could have just eaten at those two locations and been happy….of course, we all know I ate all over the island! Here’s my Google Maps List again in case you don’t want to scroll back up and view it.
Overall: Tybee Island is a good 3-5 day getaway if you’re just there for the history, some lazy beach mornings, and great food.
Leave a comment if you enjoyed this blog, have questions, or have suggestions for a future visit!
Diersing Destinations 