Travel dates: December 27-January 2, 2019/20
(I have lots more Jekyll content in my original things to do on Jekyll post, and this one, and in this podcast that I recorded with RV Atlas)
My tombstone could read, “loved islands, hated boats.” There’s probably some deep metaphorical significance there that’s eluding me at the moment that would make this very meaningful on a tombstone, but I’ll leave it for future generations to figure out. For now, let’s stick with the literal: I love islands but find boats kind of scary (or completely terrifying, depending on the boat. See: The Worst Whale Watch).
So it’s lucky that I don’t have to get on a boat at all to reach what is perhaps my very favorite island. Jekyll Island is just off the Georgia coast, and it’s easy to reach via a causeway that was built in the 50s. Yet it still feels very island-y…and not only because it’s surrounded by water, but because once you pay the entrance fee ($8) and cross the bridge, you feel like you’re in a different place altogether from the mainland you just left. Jekyll is small–just 7 miles by 1.5 miles–and 2/3 of it is protected from development by state law. Bike paths go all over the island, so that it’s entirely possible to park your car when you get there and not use it again until you leave. And if nothing else, the ridiculously high prices in the island’s one grocery store will give you a sense of being isolated from the outside world.
We spent a week on Jekyll for spring break in 2017, and I remember being worried back then that we wouldn’t find enough to do. Not only did we find enough to do that week, but we found plenty to do on our return trip as well, with surprisingly few repeats. We would have been fine with just eating out and hanging out at the beach and general wandering, but we were pleased to find how much more there was to discover on the tiny island.
New for us on this trip:
Ranger Walk
Much of Jekyll is a giant nature preserve, home to maritime forest, marsh, beaches, and lots and lots of wildlife. And it has park rangers to help you understand and explore these wild areas. On this visit we went on a ranger-led walk; the topics of the walks change seasonally, but ours was a “maritime forest ecology and bald eagle nest viewing tour.”
We met up in the Historic District with our ranger and a few other people (the group size is capped at 12, and we had half of that all by ourselves). We walked along one of the bike paths while the ranger talked to us about the plants and animals on Jekyll and then led us to a prime spot for viewing a bald eagle in her nest, sitting on her eggs. We all got a good look at it through his telescope, and that alone was worth the price of the ranger walk; we certainly wouldn’t have spotted it on our own:
We also spotted this alligator hanging out right by the path (actually, I spotted her, before the ranger did. I was pretty proud of myself):
Ranger walks are $8.35/person. Times and topics vary seasonally; make a reservation here.
Mosaic, the Jekyll Island Museum
Mosaic hadn’t opened yet last time we were on Jekyll, so we were excited to check it out on this trip. It’s a small but very well done museum about the history of the island, from the native people who lived there thousands of years ago, through its time as a plantation and then the Jekyll Island Club days, to its current incarnation as a state run recreation area. I was impressed with how many hands on activities there are for kids; it kept Abe busy while the older kids and I went off on the Rockefeller Experience Tour. They have scavenger hunts of assorted difficulties as well, but we didn’t end up doing any of those.
Virtual dress up in fancy clothes!
Before you go in, there’s an area with this cool island map and a few games kids can play. There’s also an extensive gift shop in here.
Gus is pretending to be the eagle we’d seen on our ranger walk!
The millionaires used to drive these “red bug” cars all over the island. You can pretend to be a millionaire, too!
Admission is included with the Landmark Tour of the historic district. Otherwise it’s $9 for adults and $7 for kids 4-12.
Rockefeller Experience Tour
The main tour of the historic district is the Landmark Tour; on that one, you ride a tram around and go inside two of the historic “cottages” from Club days. We’d done that one on our last trip, and, while it was excellent, we wanted something a little different this time. So we opted for the Rockefeller Experience Tour instead, which take you inside Indian Mound Cottage, former home of William and Almira Rockefeller (i.e. not the REALLY, REALLY rich Rockefellers, just the REALLY rich ones). The older kids and I did this one, and we were the only ones on our tour.
One thing I found interesting was that very few of the cottages had kitchens or dining rooms. Everyone ate at the Club Hotel, and there were always servants to send over there for between meal snacks if they wanted.
If it’s your first visit to Jekyll and you’re looking for one historic tour, I’d definitely pick the Landmark Tour over this one, because you see more of the historic district and get a better overall history. It’s also better suited to families with young kids who might well find the tram ride sufficient compensation for having to listen to a lot of talking about rich people. But the Rockefeller Experience was a great way to take a deeper dive into the island’s history and to see a house you don’t get to see on the Landmark Tour.
The Rockefeller Experience Tour is $12 for adults and $6 for kids 4-12. You can buy a combo ticket for this tour plus the museum as well.
South Dunes Beach Park
Making it to some of the beaches we didn’t see on our first trip was one of our goals on this one, so we made the short drive over to South Dunes Beach Park one foggy afternoon. There’s a nice picnic area here and then a boardwalk over the tall dunes to the wide beach.
Most Jekyll beaches are dog friendly year round, but this one is an exception because it’s a protected area for birds:
Tidelands Nature Center
This small nature center on the south end of the island offers guided beach hikes and kayak tours as well as a number of animals and other exhibits. We happened to show up right at feeding time, which made for a much more exciting visit than it likely would have been otherwise. The kids got to feed some of the animals themselves and we all got to watch the resident alligators eat.
The alligator showed off her third eyelid.
Shark Tooth Beach
In my last Jekyll blog post, I talked about wanting to make it to Shark Tooth Beach, and this time we did it!
To get there, you take a trail that starts near the entrance of Summer Waves Water Park. The trail entrance is marked with a black gate and, while we were there, it was easy to find because several cars were parked along the road right across from it. From there, it’s maybe a 20 minute walk along the path to the beach.
The “beach” is a narrowish strip that’s covered with oyster shells. You want to get here as close to low tide as possible to give yourself the best chance of finding some shark teeth amongst all the shells.
I’ll just go ahead and say it: we did not find any shark teeth.
The kids got tired of looking fairly quickly, and Abe was kind of grumpy from the start. But! Two other groups that were out there with us showed us shark teeth they had found, so it’s definitely possible for the more motivated. There’s nothing particularly scenic about this area compared to others on the island, so the shark teeth hunt is the main reason you’d want to go here.
Or because you’ve always wanted to replace your eyes with oyster shells:
Jekyll Island Dolphin Tours
We wanted to do one of the Dolphin Tours on our last trip, but we ran out of time. The boat tour leaves from the wharf in the historic district and then heads out to prime dolphin spotting locations. Ours stayed in the more protected areas in the marshes and the intercostal waterway; I’m not sure if they venture farther out into open ocean on calmer days (there was some wind when we were out). I appreciated that it was a nice calm boat ride (see: loves islands, hates boats), and it was interesting to see the island from a different perspective and hear some stories from our guide, but….we didn’t see any dolphins 🙁
I’d be interested to learn what percentage of tours do see dolphins; our guide didn’t seem terribly surprised not to find any. So do go prepared to just have a pleasant boat ride and not see dolphins; let dolphin sightings be a bonus, and you won’t end up disappointed! (Though I just read through a bunch of online reviews for research purposes, and it looks like it’s more common to see dolphins than not; one reviewer, in fact, claims to have gone on more than 30 tours and seen dolphins on all but one).
Tours are $25 for adults and $15 for kids 4-15.
Secret Rope Swing
My search for new things to do led me to the discovery of this secret rope swing near Saint Andrews Beach on the south end of the island.
When you pull into the parking area for Saint Andrews, look to your right. Just across from the first parking spaces (before the picnic area or beach), you’ll see a clearing with a small path heading off into the woods. Follow the path and you’ll (very quickly) get to a larger clearing with a rope swing hanging from a big oak tree. Proceed to have much fun.
We didn’t get here until nearly sunset, which meant that my pictures are very grainy AND that we didn’t have as much time to swing as the kids would have liked. They could have stayed for hours, I think.
Sunset at Saint Andrews Beach
Since we were already here for the rope swing, we hung out and watched the sunset over the ocean, and it was absolutely lovely. One nice thing about winter vacations is how much easier it is to stay out for sunsets.
Holly Jolly Jekyll Lights
This is seasonal, of course, but during December and early January, Jekyll puts up a pretty impressive light display. You can take a trolley tour to see all the lights, but they were all sold out on the nights we were there, so we did a self-guided driving tour instead. Definitely check it out if you’re there during the holidays!
Eating on Jekyll
We ate out a lot more on this trip than we usually do; we just kind of decided in advance to have that kind of vacation, and it was really nice. Being able to cook in the trailer is, of course, one of the big benefits of RVing, but sometimes I miss the kind of vacations where you really don’t have a choice other than just going to a restaurant most nights and letting someone else do the cooking and the clean up. Anyway, it meant that we tried several new restaurants on this trip and revisited a couple of old favorites.
Incidentally, if you’re not planning on mostly restaurant meals, make sure you stock up on groceries before you hit the island. There’s one small grocery store–Jekyll Market–but the prices are VERY high. It’s a great place for souvenirs or to pick up a couple of things here and there (or alcohol–the beer and wine prices seemed much more in line with mainland prices than the others did), but you definitely don’t want to buy a week’s worth of food there. We didn’t do a great job of packing food–we left two days after Christmas and things were just too hectic and we didn’t plan well–and really regretted it when we spent approximately $300 on the ingredients for a pasta dinner one night (slight exaggeration). You can, of course, leave the island to buy groceries….but the closest places are 20-30 minutes away, and you’ll have to pay the parking fee to get back on to Jekyll (unless you bought a weekly pass, or it’s been less than 24 hours since you first got there).
At any rate, a rundown of the restaurants we checked out:
The Love Shack BBQ Shrimp and Yardbird: This one was a repeat from last time; a little take out place tucked into the corner of Jekyll Market–you can get seafood (and particularly shrimp) here like just about everywhere else on the island, but they also have great chicken fingers and barbecue.
Driftwood Bistro: If you’re staying at the campground, this is the closest restaurant and probably the only one within reasonable walking distance (it’s still about a mile away, but we did walk it one evening). It’s well-reviewed and very popular, so be prepared to wait for a table. The resort the restaurant is attached to is right on the beach, though, so you can check it out (or the playground) while you wait. We all really enjoyed this one, particularly those of us who like seafood.
Sunrise Grille: We ate at Sunrise Grille in Beach Village before our dolphin tour and, sadly, the main thing I remember about it is that we were really cold because there were no tables left inside and we sat outside on a very windy morning. But I think the food was good, too. We’ll give it a try again sometime either when the weather is nicer or when they have room for us inside.
Beach House Restaurant and Tap Room: this one is part of the Holiday Inn Resort (a high percentage of Jekyll Restaurants are associated with hotels). The only particular issue we had with this restaurant is that it had these really tall, impossible for short people to get into easily, stools. Dave had to push me in after I finally managed to climb into mine. But we did find it a little personality-less compared to most other places we ate.
Tortuga Jack’s: We ended up eating here twice on this trip (and once on our last one); the second time we came in, everyone recognized us (we had the same server), so we felt like regulars. As I’ve hinted at, there are an awful lot of seafood heavy restaurants on Jekyll, so Mexican is a little something different (though you can still get seafood here!) It’s also right on the beach, which is nice (we didn’t sit outside this time, but we did on our last trip, so that’s an option if the weather’s good. They had live music both times we were here as well.
Dairy Queen: I asked the kids jokingly if they wanted to go to Dairy Queen, and they all really, really did. So we did. It’s the only fast food option on Jekyll, and, bonus: you can get gas at the same place!
And, of course, we spent a lot of time revisiting old favorites, too. We went to Driftwood Beach, just a 10 minute walk from the campground:
We played a round of mini golf, this time with Christmas theming:
We checked out Horton House and the Clam Creek Picnic Area:
This cargo ship capsized just offshore in the fall, and they still haven’t quite figured out how to get it out of there (everyone got off of it okay):
And lots of bike riding!
And that brought another great Jekyll trip to a close. See you again soon, Jekyll!
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