St. Simons Georgia

You'll get waaayyy more information and reviews and photos and links and everything else on tripadvisor than you will here, and it will be current!

It all depends on what interests your kids have and what you are looking to do. St. Simons and Jekyll (next door barrier island in the same county, about 20 minutes apart) are both absolutely beautiful. And have different things to offer.

The summer season is winding down now as all the local schools are back in session. So, the water park on Jekyll Island (for example) will be or may already be back on weekend hours only until Labor Day. It's called Summer Waves and they have a website, so I'd check that for operating hours for sure. On Jekyll, you can lounge on the beach (or in the water) but not enough waves for surfing. There are kayak tours in/around the intracoastal areas/marshes. Paddle board tours. Deep sea fishing excursions. A center devoted to Sea Turtles (and it's nesting season, so turtles come ashore at night to lay eggs and some are hatching as well). There is a pier for fishing. Golf. Miles of bicycle paths. Putt putt. Tabby ruins. Millionaire village/tours. And in about a month the Shrimp & Grits festival which is a huge crafts/food fair with live music, local restaurants shrimp/grits offerings for sampling, and craft beer expo.
It is a state park and there is a daily/weekly parking fee, and most of the island is in a more natural state than the much more commercial St. Simons neighbor.

But not much in the way of restaurants.

If you go to St. Simons, it is bigger and more commercial. There is a lighthouse and Village (restaurants and some shops), pier for fishing, park, water play/park (smaller than Summer waves, it's nice but more of a community pool attraction than a place with the big slides and rafts, wave pool etc like Summer Waves is). Putt putt. High end Golf.
Movie theater. LOTS of great seafood restaurants and pizza places.

Further north (Savannah) is Tybee Island, and a lot of people enjoy that. Further south is Cumberland National Seashore (you have to take an hour ferry ride to get there and back, but it's pretty neat. NO vendors. Carry it in and carry it out.. whatever you want to have with you). You can camp there is you'd like. It's where the famous wild horses are.

St. Simons is very quiet and the roads are mostly covered with awnings of live oak tree branches. Beautiful place to visit, or take up running (if you can stand the humidity to do it). They also have beaches, and again, no waves really.

Hope this helps.

I'd go to tripadvisor.com

tripadvisor.
khairete
S.

I haven't been there, but there is a wonderful historical fiction series about St. Simons that you might enjoy. Although the dialogue isn't real, of course, most of the people in the books are, as are the locations and many of the events depicted. It's called the St. Simons trilogy, by Eugenia Price. She lived there and studied the area extensively. If you're going to visit, the books (they're wonderfully written) would give you a real sense of the history and beauty of the area.