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Map

Map of Gulf Shores

All 28 places we cover in Gulf Shores, plotted and grouped by area. The map below needs JavaScript and a graphics-capable browser; the index under it does not, and carries exactly the same places as links. If you are planning on a phone with one bar of signal, use the index.

Where everything is in Gulf Shores

Pins are colour-coded by what a place is. Everything on the map is listed below it, grouped by the part of the destination it sits in.

Browse the full attractions directory

Every place shown on this map is also listed below as a link, grouped by area.

© OpenStreetMap contributors

What the pins mean

All 28 places in Gulf Shores

Gulf Shores15

Orange Beach10

Bon Secour1

Dauphin Island1

Pensacola1

Browse by what it is

Each of these opens the attractions directory filtered to that type — a plain link, so it works without JavaScript and can be bookmarked.

Getting to Gulf Shores

  • Pensacola International AirportPNS

    45 mi · about 70 min by road

    The default arrival for most visitors who fly, and the only nearby airport with a decent spread of mainline connections. It sits east of here, not west, which surprises people: the drive runs back along the Florida side through Perdido Key and crosses into Alabama at the Flora-Bama, which makes it one of the more pleasant airport transfers in the South. Allow more than the map says on a summer Saturday, when every rental unit on this coast changes hands at once.

  • Mobile Regional AirportMOB

    70 mi · about 85 min by road

    West and north, via I-10 and then south down the Baldwin County highways. Fares can beat Pensacola, and if you are heading for the Fort Morgan end of the peninsula the extra distance largely evens out. Note that Mobile has been shifting scheduled airline service toward the downtown airport at Brookley, so check which field your ticket actually uses before you book a car.

  • Destin–Fort Walton Beach AirportVPS

    95 mi · about 115 min by road

    Worth a price check and rarely worth the drive. Two hours east through Pensacola and Navarre on a good day, considerably more in July, and you gain an hour on the clock coming back because Okaloosa County is on the same Central time as Baldwin County despite feeling much further away.

  • Gulf Shores International Airport (Jack Edwards Field)JKA

    3 mi · about 8 min by road

    Three miles north of the beach and genuinely busy, but general aviation only: private and charter aircraft, flight training, no scheduled airline service. If somebody tells you that you can fly into Gulf Shores, this is what they mean, and it is not an option on a commercial ticket. It got a control tower in late 2021 and ranks among the busiest fields in Alabama by operations.

  • Alabama 59 (Gulf Shores Parkway)

    35 mi · about 45 min by road

    The traditional way in: south from Interstate 10 at Loxley, through Robertsdale and Foley, over the Intracoastal Waterway bridge and straight into the middle of Gulf Shores, where it ends at the beach. Everything a visitor needs that is not on the beach road is on this one — supermarkets, the zoo, the water park, the outlet shopping. It is also the road that seizes up on changeover Saturdays.

  • Foley Beach Express (SR 161)

    The bypass, and since May 2024 a free one. ALDOT bought the Intracoastal Waterway bridge that season and tolling stopped, which pushed a large share of beach traffic off Highway 59 and onto this route almost overnight. It runs south from SR 59 north of Foley and delivers you into Orange Beach rather than Gulf Shores, so it is the better approach if you are staying east of the state park.

  • Perdido Pass Bridge (AL 182)

    The high bridge at Alabama Point carrying the beach road over Perdido Pass, which is the only opening between Orange Beach's back bays and the open Gulf. Every charter boat, every dolphin cruise and every rental pontoon leaving Orange Beach goes under it, and the sightseeing pull-off on the east side is where people stand to watch the fleet run out at seven in the morning.

  • Mobile Bay Ferry

    22 mi · about 35 min by road

    The crossing from the end of the Fort Morgan peninsula to Dauphin Island, carrying cars and foot passengers across the mouth of Mobile Bay. Departures run roughly every ninety minutes when both vessels are working, with a thinner winter schedule. It has been suspended for long stretches in the past over funding and dredging, and it stops for weather, so confirm that it is sailing before you drive 22 miles down a peninsula with no other way off the end.

  • Alabama 180 (Fort Morgan Road)

    22 mi · about 35 min by road

    The dead-end road west out of Gulf Shores along the peninsula to Fort Morgan and the ferry slip. Two lanes, dunes on one side and Bon Secour bay on the other, with the wildlife refuge in the middle and no through traffic. It is the quietest drive on this coast and the only stretch of Alabama shoreline that still looks the way all of it once did.

Distances and drive times are typical, not promised — see today's conditions before you plan a tight connection.