Outdoors & Fishing Editor
Beat: Things to Do, Nature & Wildlife, Attractions
Dale has fished Perdido Pass and the nearshore reefs since he was old enough to hold a rod, and he reads this coast by tide and wind rather than by calendar. He covers the charter fleet, the pier, the Backcountry Trail and the refuge, and he will tell you plainly when the pass is too rough to leave and the trail is the better day.
4 guides · 3 news posts
Last updatedDale's most recent update to this site was .
Long-form
Reported guides to Gulf Shores, each with its own publication and last-updated date.
Alabama has about thirty-two miles of nesting beach, which is small enough that volunteers can walk all of it before breakfast. From the first of May, they do.
8 min read
Twenty-two miles of road west of Gulf Shores with almost nothing on it, ending at a masonry fort, the emptiest sand in Alabama and a ferry that may or may not be running today.
9 min read
The beach costs nothing and the parking costs plenty, which is the asterisk on every free-things list written about this coast. Here is what is actually free, and how to dodge the one charge that adds up.
8 min read
Most beach towns keep the nature reserve out past the last traffic light. Gulf Shores built itself around one, and the visitors who never walk into it are paying beachfront rates for half a holiday.
9 min read
News desk
Shorter, dated pieces about what is changing in Gulf Shores.
How this was written. News published under Dale Whitaker's byline was drafted by machine from primary sources — operator notices, government and municipal releases, published schedules — and every factual claim in it was matched to one of those sources before it published. A Gulf Shores Guide editor can change or pull any of it. Our editorial standards.
Chairs, tents, coolers and toys all come off the beach within an hour of sunset in both cities. The reason is not neatness, and the rule has teeth.
Two boats, one crossing, and a service that halts in a stiff wind. The ferry is one of the best half-days on the Alabama coast and the one most often ruined by not checking first.
Hurricane Sally removed about two hundred feet of the longest pier on the Gulf, months after it had been renovated. The rebuild took years and the pier reopened in August 2024.