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The quiet beaches are the ones you cannot drive to. Cayo Costa and North Captiva in Lee County are reached by boat or ferry and have miles of sand with almost nobody on them.
Keewaydin Island and Cape Romano in Collier County are the same. Caladesi Island in Pinellas County is a ferry ride from Honeymoon Island. Shell Island in Bay County is a shuttle across the pass from St Andrews. Dog Island off Carrabelle in Franklin County has no bridge. If you would rather drive, the quiet ones are the far ends of the state: Shired Island in Dixie County, Hagens Cove in Taylor, Black Rock Beach on Big Talbot Island in Duval, and the Canaveral National Seashore stretches in Brevard and Volusia.
Lee County. A 2,436-acre barrier island in Charlotte Harbor, four nautical miles west of Pine Island, reached only by boat or kayak. Nine miles of undeveloped shoreline, wind-shaped trees and dunes behind it.
Open the guide →Lee County. Four miles long and half a mile wide at the widest, and you can only get there by boat or private plane; a ferry runs from Pine Island. No cars are allowed, so people move around on foot, by bicycle or in an electric golf cart.
Open the guide →Collier County. An eight-mile barrier island south of Naples with no bridge to it, inside the Rookery Bay reserve, and reached by boat. Camping is allowed year round in the marked areas north of San Marco Road, with no permit and no reservation; sites go in the order people arrive, and they are primitive with no facilities.
Open the guide →Pinellas County. An island reached only by boat: the ferry from Honeymoon Island, or your own. Undeveloped Gulf shore on one side and paddling trails winding back through the mangroves on the other.
Open the guide →Bay County. An undeveloped barrier island reached only by boat. The official Shell Island Ferry runs from St. Andrews State Park between March and Labor Day; you board at the Pier Store and a tram carries you to the marina.
Open the guide →Franklin County. One of the barrier islands sheltering this coast, reached only by boat, and used by primitive campers and by people who want a beach with nobody on it.
Open the guide →Dixie County. The north end of the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge reaches the coast here, and Shired Island is the first stop on it. Trails lead through coastal hammock, past mudflats and out onto open beach.
Open the guide →Taylor County. Part of the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area on County Road 361, between Keaton Beach and Steinhatchee: 117 acres run by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. A viewing tower looks out over marsh, mudflats and the open Gulf, and the birding is the reason most people make the trip, with bald eagles, reddish egrets and large flocks of shorebirds and wading birds in winter, spring and fall.
Open the guide →Duval County. Reached by a half-mile trail through hammock forest and coastal scrub, and best visited at low tide. The black formations are not rock at all - they are spodosol, soft and formed out of soil, eroded into shapes that look volcanic.
Open the guide →Volusia County. The northern district of Canaveral National Seashore, entered from South Atlantic Avenue one mile south of Bethune Beach. Entry is $25 a vehicle and covers seven consecutive days at any park entrance; a motorcycle is $20, a walker or cyclist aged 16 and over is $15, and an annual pass for the park is $45.
Open the guide →Three parts of the coast allow it, all on the Atlantic side.
Most Florida beaches do not allow dogs on the sand at all, so the ones that do are worth knowing by name.
Florida has two beaches where clothing is optional with the county's agreement, and they are the only two.
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