The South’s Most Beautiful Boneyard Beaches

In the velvety sands of Boneyard Beach near Amelia Island, Florida, the skeleton of a maritime forest cuts stark silhouettes. Water laps around the twisted forms of long-dead tree trunks and branches, all bleached and worn smooth. A ghost crab disappears into the interlocking fingers of an exposed platform of roots. 

Dotting the Southeastern coast, boneyard—or driftwood—beaches like this one are studies in impermanence. Longshore currents redistribute sand constantly, depositing it in some places while eating away at protective dunes in others. As these latter beaches contract, saltwater creeps beyond the tree line—a natural process hastened by rising sea levels.

Over time live oaks, palmettos, red cedars, and pine trees alike succumb to the nutrient imbalance and root damage wrought by increased salinity. But even after they die, the trees can remain embedded in the beach for decades, playing a role in storm mitigation and buffering against further erosion. 

And while the resulting landscape may be a graveyard of sorts, it teems with life. The snags of dead trees offer perches for shorebirds and nesting sites for ospreys. Fiddler crabs pick through the wrack while the surf deposits fresh flotsam daily. The tidal zone is full of mollusks and amphipods. Sea turtles crawl onto land to lay eggs. 

Boneyard beaches also provide stunning photo ops and convenient hammock perches for human visitors. Below, find five of the South’s best.

Driftwood Beach

Jekyll Island, Georgia

Access this 1.3-mile stretch of Instagram-worthy beach via a winding, sandy path lined with saw palmettos and sea oats on the northern end of Jekyll. The sculptural, clamber-worthy trunks and branches are best enjoyed at outgoing or low tide—at high tide, much of the beach disappears underwater. But its northward orientation makes for equally stunning sunrises and sunsets.

Boneyard Beach

Bulls Island, South Carolina

Bulls Island makes up one piece of the 66,000-acre Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, and its driftwood-strewn beach is only accessible by boat (Coastal Expeditions runs a ferry). Here on the island’s northern edge, gnarled oaks and pines protrude from the sand, and bird life of all sorts—from shorebirds in the surf to woodpeckers in the forest—converges. 

Botany Bay Beach

Edisto Island, South Carolina

Two plantations once stood on Botany Bay’s four thousand acres, and the ruins of a few buildings remain, adding a somber note to beaches already dotted with fossilized trees. But as nature has steadily reclaimed this protected wildlife management area, it has become host to alligators, sea turtles, and countless birds, including painted buntings, anhingas, snowy egrets, and roseate spoonbills.

Hunting Island State Park 

Beaufort, South Carolina

This otherworldly state park—just a bridge over from the town of Beaufort—is so lush that it served as a backdrop for the Vietnam War scenes in Forrest Gump. To see its stretch of boneyard beach, take the Nature Center Scenic Trail through the saw palmettos, live oaks, and red bays until you hit sand. 

Black Rock Beach 

Jacksonville, Florida

Located less than a half hour from downtown Jacksonville and twenty minutes from Amelia Island, this beach at Big Talbot Island State Park formed at the end of the last ice age, as evidenced by its eponymous black rocks. Among the arching branches and splayed roots of skeleton trees are volcanic-looking structures made of spodosol, a type of soil that mingles organic matter with oxide and aluminium. Big Talbot is also home to Boneyard Beach, another beloved stretch of driftwood.