Happenin’
Places › Florida › Northeast Florida › Big Talbot Island State Park
Big Talbot Island State Park, photo 1 of 4

Photo: oliver.dodd / CC BY 2.0 · source

Beaches

Big Talbot Island State Park

Jacksonville, FL · Northeast Florida$$3 per vehicle, good for all four lots for the day

About

Bleached skeletons of live oak and cedar lie across Boneyard Beach on Big Talbot Island, about 20 miles east of downtown Jacksonville. The beach runs a mile below a 20-foot bluff, and the half-mile Shoreline Trail reaches its north end from the Bluffs picnic area parking lot. Swimming isn't recommended there, and in shorebird breeding season the stretch right next to the Bluffs is closed. The Blackrock Trail starts from a trailhead lot of its own and comes out at Blackrock Beach, where crabs and oysters live on dark hardpan rock in the shallows, a formation rare in Florida. Park archaeologists have found fossilized Florida mammoth bones on Boneyard Beach.

Highlights

Boneyard Beach driftwood oaksBlackrock Trail to the shore20-foot bluff above the beachHardpan rock at Blackrock BeachBluffs picnic pavilions

Getting there

12157 Heckscher Drive, Jacksonville, FL 32226

Related places

Jacksonville Beach Beaches

Jacksonville Beach

Jacksonville Beach, FL · Northeast FloridaFree

You don't need a fishing license on the Jacksonville Beach pier, which runs nearly a quarter mile out into the Atlantic. Surfers and swimmers have to stay 300 feet clear of it…

St. Augustine Beach Beaches

St. Augustine Beach

St. Augustine Beach, FL · Northeast FloridaFree

The St. Johns County Ocean Pier runs 1,300 feet out from a wide stretch of Atlantic sand on Anastasia Island, and you can drive right onto the beach. Northeast Florida's surfers…

Guana River Beach Beaches

Guana River Beach

Ponte Vedra Beach, FL · Northeast Florida$

Three paid lots on A1A, between St. Augustine and Ponte Vedra Beach, lead onto Guana's beach and are open from 8 am to sunset. The dunes in this reserve stand 30 to 40 feet, some…

More in Northeast Florida

Others worth the drive in this corner of Florida.

All of Northeast Florida →
Fort Clinch State Park Beaches

Fort Clinch State Park

Fernandina Beach, FL · Northeast Florida

A red-brick Civil War fort sits at the northern tip of Amelia Island, its ramparts looking out over the channel where the Amelia River meets Cumberland Sound. Walk the granite…

Anastasia State Park Beaches

Anastasia State Park

St. Augustine, FL · Northeast Florida

Some of the better surf on Florida's east coast breaks along the four miles of beach here, a short bridge from the oldest city in the country. From late fall into early spring…

Washington Oaks Gardens State Park Gardens & wildlife

Washington Oaks Gardens State Park

Palm Coast, FL · Northeast Florida

Louise Powis Young laid out these formal gardens in the 1930s on her winter estate, and the state has kept them in her hands' image: brick paths winding past reflecting ponds…

Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens Attractions

Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens

Jacksonville, FL · Northeast Florida$$

At the Jacksonville Zoo, on 122 acres beside the Trout River, the three African elephants share a 275,000-gallon pool. The Manatee River habitat can take up to 20 rescued…

St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park Attractions

St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park

St. Augustine, FL · Northeast Florida$$

Open since 1893, this is one of Florida's oldest attractions, and in 1993 it became the first place anywhere to display every living species of crocodilian, all 24 of them, from…

Lightner Museum Attractions

Lightner Museum

St. Augustine, FL · Northeast Florida$$

Henry Flagler built the Alcazar in 1888 to pamper railroad-era winter guests, and the Gilded Age never quite left: behind the twin red-domed towers sit three floors of Tiffany…

Part of these collections

Undeveloped Beaches on Florida's East Coast14 places

Undeveloped Beaches on Florida's East Coast

For the days you'd rather carry your own water than hunt for parking. All of it is protected land of one kind or another.