Best Beaches in Pensacola, Pensacola Beach, and Navarre

 Pensacola & Navarre Beach The Emerald Coast and Panhandle's best beaches

With so many miles of beach, the biggest challenge of going to the best beach can be on deciding where to go and where to park.

  • If you want to be close to the crowds, or the restaurants, or if you want to watch the surfers (if the waves are high enough that day) or if you don't want to do much driving, then Pensacola Beach is probably your best bet.
  • If your looking for more of a nature type of experience with hiking trails, a wide variety of bird life, and unusual trees and vegetation, and a possible chance at spotting an armadillo, then you'll definitely want to go to Fort Pickens.
  • Your third choice is to head east towards Opal Beach. The farther east you go, the less likely you are to run into crowds. You can then walk long stretches of beach in solitude and look for that one-of-a-kind shell that's just waiting for someone to come along.
  • If you want to go as far east as possible on Santa Rosa Island, before you run into Eglin Air Force Base, then you'll want to check out Navarre Beach. Even though it is far east, since it is part of the town of Navarre with plenty of hotels and tourists, it is a little more active than some of the other eastern beach areas. It is, nevertheless, a huge area, and you can most assuredly find some square footage of beach to call your own.

 

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Once you decide on an area to go, you'll have to narrow your choice to a specific location. Some areas have parking lots only, some also have restroom facilities, some have many pavilions with picnic tables, and some areas even have outdoor showers. I wouldn't suggest using them as your morning cleaning in your quest to being a full-fledged beach bum though, since it does get a little nippy here in the winter.

While you're driving along you will see painted white numbers on the street. Parking Lot Map, size 31k Those numbers are parking lot numbers. All parking lots have numbers but all numbers don't seemingly have parking lots though. What do I mean by that? If you look at the map above, 2 through 8 seem to be together, 16 and 17 seem to be together, and 19 and 20 seem to be together. Yet the only ones of those numbers that are painted on the street are 8 and 20. The rest of the numbers, 1, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 21, and 22, are also painted on the street. So where is 2 through 7, 16 and 17, and 19? Since some areas have more than one parking lot, they have apparently been given more than one number, yet only one of the numbers from the group of lots is painted on the street. So, even though Opal Beach has parking lots 2 through 8, you'll only find an 8 painted on the street. Don't ask me why 16 and 17 aren't painted on the street. If I had to guess, I would say it's because it is the parking lots to Pensacola Beach. It is the main, centrally located beach area where the vast majority of people go. I guess the city didn't think it was necessary to mark the obvious. Nevertheless, it took me six months of living here to figure out what the numbering system was all about.

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If I still have your attention after trying to explain the goofy parking lot numbers, then you may want a rundown of what can be found at each of those locations. Here it is:

  • Lot 1 - Parking only
  • Lots 2-8 - (Opal Beach) Parking, restrooms, many pavilions with tables, and outdoor showers.
  • Lot 9 - Parking only
  • Lot 10 - Parking only
  • Lots 11 A-C - Parking and Restrooms
  • Lot 12 - Parking only
  • Lot 13 - Parking only
  • Lot 14 - Parking only
  • Lot 15 - Parking only
  • Lots 16-17 - (Pensacola Beach) Parking, restrooms, many pavilions with tables, and outdoor showers.
  • Lot 18 - Parking only
  • Lots 19-20 - (Ft. Pickens Park) Parking, restrooms, 20 pavilions with tables.
  • Lot 21 - Parking only
  • Lot 22 - Parking only

 

Last thing that should be noted is that you can't park on the side of the road from parking lots 1-10 and from 19-22. Those are within the Gulf Islands National Seashore, so you must park where they want you to. Hope all this made sense for you.

Also, Navarre Beach is before (east of) the parking lot numbering system. Suffice it to say, there are plenty of parking areas at Navarre Beach.

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