Guides
10 long-form guides to Gulf Shores, each one signed and dated so you can see how current it is. They answer the questions that do not fit on a listings page: how the place is laid out, what you will actually be charged for, and which trade-offs are worth making.
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Nearly every rental on this coast turns over on a Saturday, which means the week has a shape whether you plan one or not. Here is the shape, and how to stop it costing you two days.
Nearly every rental on this coast turns over on a Saturday, which means the week has a shape whether you plan one or not. Here is the shape, and how to stop it costing you two days.
9 min readYvonne Ramsey
Guides
This coast has four distinct populations across the year and they barely overlap. Working out which one you want to be in the middle of is most of the decision.
9 min readBrandi Cochran
Guides
Alabama has about thirty-two miles of coastline and this is all of it. Once you understand that the towns sit on an island with a state park in the middle, the rest of the week arranges itself.
8 min readBrandi Cochran
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 readDale Whitaker
Two cities, one beach, eight miles apart, with a state park in between. The sand is identical and the weather is identical, so the choice comes down to whether your week has a boat in it.
8 min readBrandi Cochran
The sand runs the same for thirty miles, so choosing a beach here is not an aesthetic decision. It is a decision about parking, restrooms and how far you are willing to carry a cool box.
8 min readYvonne Ramsey
Guides
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 readDale Whitaker
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 readDale Whitaker
Guides
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 readDale Whitaker
This is a family destination by default, so the useful question is not what there is to do. It is what you do when the flag is red, when it is two in the afternoon in August, and when the four-year-old will not go near the surf.
9 min readYvonne Ramsey