Sand in the Coffee, Vol. 17: the etiquette of the public beach access
Cup’s poured. Pull up a chair, because we need to talk about the parking lot.
Not in a mean way. In a we’ve been watching this happen every June for years way, with genuine affection and mild exhaustion. If you’ve been keeping up — last week’s Vol. 16 was all about packing — you know this column loves you enough to be honest with you. So here we go.
The public beach accesses on this stretch of coast are some of the most underused and most misused resources out here. They’re free. They’re right off the road. They get you to the same Gulf that everyone else is paying resort fees to look at. But there’s a quiet code around them, and most visitors blow right past it.
The Lot Is Not a Staging Area
You know the chaos. Someone parks crooked across two spots while they offload seventeen pieces of gear. Someone else idles in the fire lane waiting for grandma to get her sandals on. A third car is just parked in the middle of the aisle, doors flung open, the whole family wandering like they’ve never seen a parking lot before.
Here’s the local move: you pack the car before you drive to the access. You know what you need. Cooler, chairs, umbrella, bag. It’s in the car. You pull in, you park in an actual space, you unload fast, and you go. The lot is not your living room.
Check live conditions before you leave the condo so you’re not reorganizing the whole plan in the middle of the exit row.
The Walkover Is a One-Lane Road
Those boardwalks over the dunes? They’re narrow for a reason. The dunes are fragile. The sea oats are not decoration — they’re the whole reason the dunes exist at all, and the reason you have a beach to visit. Walking on them, letting your kids tumble down them, staking your umbrella in them: all of it does real damage that takes years to fix.
Single file on the walkover. Gear in hand, not dragged. If someone’s coming the other way, you stop and let them pass like a reasonable human being.
Perdido Key State Park and Big Lagoon State Park both have proper facilities and staff who can answer questions if you’ve got them. The undeveloped accesses do not. Use your judgment accordingly.
Your Umbrella Has a Neighbor
June means the beach is packed. That’s just the truth. When you set up your spot, take a breath and look around before you hammer in the first stake. The family who got there at 7 a.m. didn’t leave six feet of space between their chairs so you could fill it with your entire canopy system.
Locals tend to set up compact and tight, then expand as the day stretches out and the crowd thins. Give the people around you the same grace you want them to give you. It goes a long way.
If the main accesses feel shoulder-to-shoulder, it’s worth driving a little further west. The further you get from the big resort clusters, the more breathing room you find.
When You Leave, Actually Leave
This one’s short: pack out everything you brought in. Every can, every bag, every twist-tie that came off the umbrella pole. The locals who live here year-round are the ones walking this beach in October. Leave it the way you’d want to find it.
After a long beach day done right, you’ve earned a reward. Doc’s Seafood Shack is a solid cold-drink-and-fried-something stop, and so is Bahama Bob’s Beach Side Cafe if you want something closer to Perdido Key. The Sandshaker Lounge is there if the day calls for it, and it probably does.
The beach is everybody’s out here. That’s the whole point. Treat it like you mean to come back.
Wave when you pass. I’ll be the one heading to the access at 7 a.m. before the lot fills up.
— Kathy