A South Beach Tybee Weekend: The Full Itinerary

South Beach is the easiest place on Tybee to base a weekend from — the pier, the restaurants, and the beach are all within a few blocks, so you spend your time doing things instead of driving to them. This is built for a couple or a small group with two full days on the island; if you can stretch it to three, we've added a slower third day at the end. Here's how we'd lay it out from right in the middle of the South Beach hub.

Day 1: Arrival, the beach, and dinner close to home

Morning/early afternoon — arrive and get oriented. Check-in is 4:00 PM, but if you're arriving earlier, drop your bags and go find the water — most South Beach hotels, ours included, will hold luggage before check-in. Walk the strand near the pier first; it's the busiest stretch, and it'll give you a feel for the island's scale before you wander further. If you're driving in from Savannah, budget the extra twenty minutes for the bridges, which can back up on a Friday afternoon in season.

Mid-afternoon — settle in and swim. Once you're checked in, this is the low-key half of day one. A dip in the pool, a walk to the sand, sunscreen reapplied. If you're staying with us, the rooms are steps from both, so there's no real transition between unpacking and being in the water. Take this stretch slow — the rest of the weekend has more structure to it, and this is your one unscheduled block.

Early evening — dinner within a block or two. This is the advantage of South Beach: StingRay's and Fannie's are both essentially next door, so you don't need a plan for dinner on night one. StingRay's has the bigger portions and a livelier room, good if your group wants noise and a full menu; Fannie's has the rooftop view if you'd rather watch the sun go down over the strip while you eat. Either way, you'll be back at your room in under ten minutes, which matters after a travel day.

Night — the pier, or an early night. Walk out onto the pier after dinner if it's open; it's the best vantage point on the island after dark, with the lighthouse beam visible up the coast and the water noticeably calmer-sounding than it looks during the day. Otherwise, call it early — day two starts with a boat, and an early dolphin tour means an early alarm. Either way, resist the urge to overplan night one; travel days run long, and a slow first evening sets a better tone for the busier day that follows than trying to pack in one more activity.

Day 2: Dolphins, the lighthouse, and Fort Pulaski

Early morning — dolphin tour. Book the first or golden-hour run with Captain Derek's Dolphin Adventure if you can; sightings are close to guaranteed, and the route passes the lighthouse and Fort Pulaski from the water, which is a different view than you'll get on land later in the day. Bring a light jacket even in summer — it's cooler on the water than the forecast for the island suggests, and the boat's own breeze adds to it.

Late morning — breakfast, if you skipped it. Sunrise Restaurant is the no-frills diner move, a few blocks up from South Beach, with strong coffee and a breakfast buffet that runs early enough to fit before a mid-morning tour if you flip the order around. If you'd rather have something lighter after the boat, Mi Vida's sourdough and oat-milk café con leche is a few blocks inland, and better suited to eating outside in the late-morning sun.

Midday — the lighthouse. Drive or golf-cart up to the Tybee Island Light Station. Climb the 178 steps for the whole island laid out beneath you, then walk through the keepers' cottages and the museum across the street — plan on an hour and a half if you want to see it all properly, longer if anyone in your group wants to read every placard.

Early afternoon — Fort Pulaski. Ten minutes further toward Savannah, Fort Pulaski is the quieter half of the day: Civil War-era brick walls, marsh trails, and noticeably fewer people than the beach. Give it a slow two hours and bring water; there's not much shade, and the walk around the outer walls and moat takes longer than it looks on the map.

Late afternoon — back to the beach or the pool. By now you've earned a few hours of doing nothing. Head back to South Beach, rinse off in the pool, and let the afternoon run out. This is the block to skip if your group is more go-go-go than lounge, but for most people, two structured mornings back to back need a real break before dinner.

Evening — the sit-down dinner. Save your one reservation-worthy meal for tonight. Pier 16, right by the water, is the easy walk-to option for shrimp and grits. If you don't mind the short drive, Sundae Cafe toward the north end is worth booking ahead for — Southern cooking and a key lime pie locals reorder, in a room that feels more like a proper dinner out than the casual South Beach spots.

Day 3 (if you have it): slow morning and Savannah

Morning — nothing scheduled. If you were disciplined about pacing days one and two, use a third morning as the reward: a slow beach walk, a shark-tooth hunt in the shell beds at low tide, coffee somewhere you haven't tried yet. This is the day to not look at a clock.

Afternoon — Savannah. Twenty to thirty minutes west on US-80 gets you into Savannah's historic district — cobblestone squares, the riverfront, and a completely different pace and architecture than the beach you just left. Give it a real afternoon rather than a rushed hour; parking downtown takes patience, and the squares reward slow walking more than a checklist of stops. If you only have a few hours, pick one or two squares to actually sit in rather than trying to walk the whole historic grid — Savannah rewards lingering more than covering ground.

Evening — dinner in Savannah, or back on the island. Either works. Savannah has the bigger, dressier dinner options if you want to close the trip out somewhere new; heading back to Tybee for a final casual meal near South Beach has its own appeal if you'd rather not drive again after a full day out.

Final morning / departure tips

If you have a late checkout or a flight later in the day, use the morning for whatever you didn't get to: a last beach walk, a shark-teeth hunt, or a coffee at Mi Vida before you go. Checkout is 11:00 AM. Savannah's airport is 30–40 minutes away, so build in buffer if you're catching a flight — the bridges off the island can back up on summer Sunday afternoons, and it's a bad day to be cutting it close.

If you're driving home rather than flying, consider leaving a little earlier than you think you need to and stopping in Savannah on the way out rather than trying to fit it in as a separate day — it's directly on the route back to I-95 regardless of which direction you're headed, so it costs you very little extra driving.

What to book ahead

• Dolphin tour or fishing charter — the popular time slots go first, especially June through August.
• Sit-down dinner reservations — Sundae Cafe in particular; the casual spots near South Beach are mostly walk-in.
• Your room — book weeks ahead for summer weekends; South Beach fills up fastest since it's the most walkable stretch on the island.
• A rental car, if you're flying in and adding the Savannah day — you won't need one for Tybee itself, but you will for the drive west.

Rough cost for the weekend

Figure a wide range depending on season and how you travel — a South Beach hotel room, a dolphin tour per person, and a couple of casual meals a day for the group, with one nicer sit-down dinner if you add it. Parking, if you drive onto the island, is metered and worth budgeting a few dollars a day for — one more reason to stay somewhere you can walk from instead of moving the car for every meal.

If a South Beach base sounds right for your weekend, check availability — we're directly on the sand, a block from StingRay's and Fannie's, with the pier a short walk in the other direction, and our rooms sleep anywhere from two to four depending on what your group needs. And if two or three days turns into wanting a fourth, that's the easiest problem to solve on the whole itinerary — extend the same room, and you've already done the hard part of figuring out where everything is.