Tybee Island
Tybee Island
On our way up the east coast at the beginning of this year, our plan was to stop into Savannah, Georgia and visit Tybee Island. Unfortunately, the campground we had planned to stay at was booked, so that left me scrambling to look for other accommodations at the last minute. I was determined not to miss it on the way back down for the winter. I switched around campground and routes to fit the new plan and this time we were able to stop in for a few days to visit the area and see Tybee Island.
Savannah is a unique city on the east coast of Georgia whose roadways are covered in overhead tree limbs. Spanish moss hangs down from the limbs giving it a feeling of traveling through a creepy swamp.
Once you leave Savannah and continue east over the marshes, you reach Tybee Island.
Tybee Island is more of a local tourist destination. It’s where people travel to for day trips to the beach in the summer months. During the winter, it can be quite deserted. The ocean water is cold and not as appealing in the winter, but we still saw surfers braving the waves one sunny winter day.
Tybee Lighthouse is an icon in the small community. It has been a beacon on the island since 1736, guiding sailors safely around the shores.
Tybee doesn’t have a drone flying restriction, so it was the perfect opportunity to get out the drone and practice our flying skills. Jaden took the reigns in a few spots and practiced maneuvering the drone over the dock and around the ocean waters.
We drove down to the pier and watched the birds as they flew around the shore and perched themselves on top of the pier’s roof.
We took a few good shots of the pier at sunset as the tide was low and the sky was turning all shades of purple and pink.
It’s interesting the different kinds of shells that are found on each of these beaches that we visit. At the beaches near Padre Island, TX, most of the shells were broken as people would step on them. The shells in North Carolina were mostly intact and came in all sizes and shapes. At Tybee, they were small and there were fewer of them. Massachusetts had sea glass in all colors littered on the shores. Just goes to show that every beach is different and the sculpting of the waves make for a unique experience at each location.
Check out some of the drone footage…
Skidaway Island State Park
The sites at Skidaway Island are nestled into a wooded area with trees that overhang the road on arrival. Check-in is at the main visitor’s building. You pull forward into a u-shaped parking area and go inside the building to get your site number. We had to pay an additional $5 for in/out fees to the state park as it wasn’t included in our online reservation.
Our site was #14. It was a parallel to the road type site that was an easy pull in/out for our 40′ fifth wheel. We felt like we had our own back yard in this spot and the trees were close enough together we could put up our hammock.
The roads that are interior to the park are heavily upheaved by tree roots and the single lane, curvy road didn’t seem very ideal for our size of rig. In fact there was one location where a branch hung down a ways over the road. We actually got the tape measure out and measured it from the road’s edge and it measured 12’11”. We are 13’6″ to the top of the a.c. units. This gave us some pause as to making it through the campground. However, the way the roads curve, we had more than a foot of clearance so it wasn’t an issue.
Some of the interior roads also had tight curves, so to get out the campground, we scouted it out first and determined that the best way to get out from site #14 was to continue looping to the right until we hit the main campground road that leads to the visitor’s center. We side brushed a few leaves, but it wasn’t a problem.
However, if we had to select a site again, I would rather have selected the pull-thru sites just next to the dump station. It doesn’t give you the backyard feel of the sites around #14, but the roads were more navigable here. These sites are meant for big rigs. and the turns out of them are completely do-able for big rigs.
We had electric and water at our site and used the dump station on the way out.
We were there a few days before Christmas and most of the trees were still green. There was a considerable muddy spot before entering our site, but a tropical storm had come through the day before. It wasn’t an issue and we were told that tree limbs falling were minimal.
Starlink was unusable due to the trees. We had 1 bar on the Verizon phones and 3 bars with the cell antenna (28/10). AT&T was 4 bars with the cell antenna (24/2).