Vacation Ideas - Gulf Coast?

[DoraBora]

Does anyone have ideas about things to do apart from the hanging out on the beach -- AL or FL Gulf Coast?  A few years back, we went to the airshow at Pensacola NAS, which was wonderful (though bad weather cut it short).  Has anyone visited other cool museums or found fun activities?

This group would include grandparents and my immediate family, youngest of whom will be 18.  We will have to go mid-August, between summer and fall college semesters.  (How I miss the days when we made our own schedule!  😊)

[Katy]

Have you considered St Augustine or Savannah instead?

[athena1277]

Last year we went to Destin.  While we were there we went on a replica Biloxi Schooner for an afternoon sail that included dolphin sightings.  I didn’t know there are lots of them in that area.  We even saw several babies.

If you are in AL or Pensacola, you could tour the U.S.S. Alabama battleship on Mobile Bay.

[StephanieZ]

Kayaking and/or paddle boarding on the Wakulla River in FL -- see manatees, alligators, etc. You can even swim if you're brave. There are a couple rope swings along the banks.

We spent Octobers on St George Island for over a decade, and adding in the Wakulla River kayaking days was a fantastic delight, especially as the kids got older. 🙂

Paddle boarding on it is awesome, too, but if the flow is high (depends on time of day/tides because it's a spring fed river that feeds into the ocean eventually), it can be a lot of work, so stick with kayaks unless you have experienced and strong paddle boarders. (We typically take a fleet of a mixture of boards and kayaks, so everyone can take turns and not get too worn out.)

Allow for about 4 hours round trip including a lunch break:

Our general system is to launch at the public launch next to TNT Kayak Rentals. We paddle up river for a couple hours, where you get to the end of the navigable river because there is a fence that crosses the river preventing you from proceeding to the actual springs which are part of a nice park. If you look left when you see the fence, you'll see a nice pull out, where you can pull out, flip a kayak over to make a temporary picnic table, and have your picnic lunch. Then you float easily down river in about an hour to your launch point. We have our own boats/boards, but you can rent them from TNT. We've often rented one or two extras from TNT for friends/guests if we have a large group visiting us. 

TNT staff are grumpy, lol, but they have fine equipment and all you have to do is rent the boats from them, so it's not like you have to deal with their grumpiness much. (Just don't ask to use their bathroom. Stop at a quick mart on the way instead! I think they must have very limited sewer access, because they are really rude about people using their bathroom. DEFINITELY buy something there if you want/need to use it. We've learned only to ask if we have a small child or someone else who can't wait, lol.)

(You can pay for a guided trip like this for about $120/person. We did that the first time, then we realized how easy it was and have self-guided since then, which is more like $25/person if you have to rent boats and free if you own them.)

Another good day adventure is to spend a half day or so at the Wakulla Springs State Park. COLD but awesome clean water to swim in and a super high diving platform for the brave souls in the group. 

There are similar nice spring fed rivers around to kayak on in other areas if you're not near Wakulla. I love them all. 🙂

Appalachicola is a fun town to visit if you're in the mood for shopping and/or a nice meal out (The Owl Cafe is the bomb.) We headed to there for the day/half day when the weather was sketchy.