Tybee Island

The beach is only about 20 minutes away from downtown Savannah. Most of the area surrounding the islands from Savannah to Tybee Beach are comprised of salt marsh. So, you have to drive clear out (a whole 12 miles 🙂 ) to Tybee Beach for some authentic sand and surf. 

The drive is scenic — passing Fort Pulaski and Oatland Island — and short. Tybee’s not huge but it gets the job done and has nice wide beaches with plenty of room to savor the ocean. The days we visited were warm but a nice breeze was blowing so it actually felt quite cold if you didn’t keep moving.

We built sandcastles and drew in the sand. James and Stephanie even splashed around a bit in the ocean. Stephanie was intrigued by the plate-size jellyfish that were beached along the sand near the jetty. We saw about 10 of them down there. She would hunt for them and then squeal each time she found one of the gelatinous creatures half buried in the sand.

On the last day at Tybee, James and Stephanie found an enormous hole that someone had dug. So they decided to add turrets around the outside of the hole. By the end of the day we had a huge sandcastle with lots of walls and turrets surrounding it. We even had some folks stop by to take their pictures in front of it ~