Outdoor Recreation

Our region is known for its natural beauty and scenic landscapes. Atlantic Ocean beaches are an hour’s drive or less from any one of our communities and residents enjoy our marshes, rivers, and forests. These offer opportunities for a variety of outdoor recreation activities, such as fishing, boating, hiking, and wildlife observation.

Beaches

Public beaches on St. Simons Island and Jekyll Island are largely uncrowded most of the year and allow a variety of ways to enjoy the ocean waves, from paddle surfing to kite boarding to watching sunrises and building sandcastles.

Cumberland Island National Seashore

From St. Marys, visitors catch the ferry to Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia's largest and southernmost barrier island. Here pristine maritime forests, undeveloped beaches, and wide marshes whisper the stories of natives, missionaries, enslaved African Americans and wealthy industrialists. Cumberland Island is also home to more than 9,800 acres of Congressionally designated wilderness.

Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge was established to provide "refuge and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife,” and visitors to Folkston can see many of these animals on the hiking and water trails that lead into the Okefenokee Swamp. The refuge provides habitat for threatened and endangered species, such as red-cockaded woodpeckers, wood storks and eastern indigo snakes. The most iconic species that resides in the refuge is the American Alligator. With an estimated population of approximately 15,000 alligators living in the Okefenokee Swamp, visitors are almost guaranteed to have at least a few sightings of these fascinating reptiles.

Sapelo Island

A ferry takes visitors from Darien to one of Georgia’s remote barrier islands, Sapelo Island. Loved for its primitive and undeveloped beauty, it is home to only about 25 permanent residents who make up Hog Hammock, a Gullah community of descendants of formerly enslaved Africans. The island houses the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve, the University of Georgia Marine Institute, the state-owned Reynolds Mansion, Sapelo Island Lighthouse, and miles of often deserted beaches.

Crooked River State Park

Crooked River State Park in St. Marys is the perfect spot for enjoying the Intracoastal Waterway and maritime forest. A boat ramp is popular with anglers who often take to the water before sunrise. The park’s nature trail winds through forest and salt marsh, and hikers may see gopher tortoises, fiddler crabs, herons, and other birds. A nature center features fish, snakes, turtles, and other animals native to coastal Georgia. Visitors may venture to the nearby ruins of a tabby mill, built around 1825 and later used as a Civil War starch factory. Campsites are surrounded by palmettos and Spanish moss-draped oaks, while cottages are set near the tidal river.

Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge

Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge near Darien offers a variety of opportunities to explore and enjoy the great outdoors from sunrise to sunset every day. You can fish, or during the season, hunt white-tailed deer, or observe and photograph wildlife. The refuge provides premier nesting, foraging, and wintering habitat for a diversity of wildlife, including nearly 350 species of birds. Signature species include threatened wood storks, which nest in a large colony on Woody Pond, and the colorful and uncommon painted bunting.

Fishing and Paddling

Our rivers are magnets for outdoors people who want to put a line or a paddle in the water. The Altamaha River is the largest free-flowing river on the East Coast and identified as one of “America’s Last Great Places.” It flows to the sea through Wayne, McIntosh, and Glynn counties. The Satilla River is a blackwater stream consisting of tannins and other natural leachates, which cause the river to have a darkly stained appearance. The Satilla River flows through Brantley and Charlton counties before it empties into the St. Andrews Sound in Camden County. Tidal streams throughout the area are often explored by paddlers.

Anglers also enjoy fishing from area bridges and piers, and surf fishing on the beach. Several local marinas harbor boat charters that will take groups out for deep sea fishing.

Hiking and Biking

Opportunities for hiking and biking are great in Southeast Coastal Georgia. St. Simons Island and Jekyll Island each have more than 20 miles of paved bike paths that provide easy and safe access to attractions, restaurants, and shops without the use of a car.

Camden County is home to 6.25 miles of the Georgia Coast Rail-Trail, which eventually will stretch 68 miles from Kingsland north to Riceboro along an abandoned CSX rail corridor. Two disconnected sections of the trail are currently open, a three-mile stretch north of Woodbine with a crushed stone surface and another three miles of paving and boardwalk in Woodbine along the Satilla River.

In Darien, biking is popular downtown and in residential areas as well as in the abandoned rice fields that are maintained as waterfowl refuges.

In other parts of Southeast Coastal Georgia, long, flat stretches of lightly traveled roadways are favorites with road cyclists.

Golf

Southeast Coastal Georgia has near-perfect golf weather year round and numerous courses, from private to public. We are home to professional golfers, such as Davis Love III, and annually host the RSM Classic golf tournament on Sea Island/St. Simons Island. Local residents like to volunteer to work the RSM tournament, interacting with guests and players.

Hunting

Thousands of acres of Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) are found in Southeast Coastal Georgia, offering opportunities for the seasonal hunting of deer, turkey, small game, and waterfowl. The WMAs also allow fishing, geocaching, and wildlife viewing. Some have canoe launches and archery and shooting ranges.

Bird Watching

Southeast Coastal Georgia is home to 10 of the 17 sites along the Colonial Coast Birding Trail which winds its way from Savannah and terminates in the Okefenokee Swamp. A wide variety of habitats along the trail includes shorelines, salt marshes, old rice fields, woodlands, tidal rivers, freshwater wetlands, and other habitats. Here you can see red-cockaded woodpeckers; wild turkeys, wading birds such as wood storks, ring-necked ducks and other waterfowl; hear the call of the northern bobwhite; see blue grosbeaks and indigo buntings, as well as Mississippi kites, ospreys, and bald eagles. All told, more than 300 species of birds have been identified at sites along the trail.

Youth Sports

Each of our communities operates facilities for youth athletics, giving our young people plenty of outlets for their energy and teaching them good sportsmanship.

• Brantley County Parks and Recreation • Camden County Public Service Authority • Charlton County Recreation Department • Glynn County Recreation and Parks • McIntosh County Parks and Recreation • Wayne County Parks and Recreation

Outdoor

Recreation

209 Gloucester Street, Ste 211 Brunswick, GA 31520

912.996.3750