Start from 29 curated places around Tybee Island, GA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Sundae Cafe
Housed in a former ice cream parlor a block off the main drag in the South End, Sundae Cafe has been the island's top dinner table for years — a family-run room that manages to feel intimate even when slammed. The menu leans Southern Lowcountry: shrimp and grits, hand-cut steaks, daily fresh fish, and scratch-made sides, with a wine list that takes the food seriously. Reservations are essentially mandatory.
Tybean Art & Coffee Bar
The island's best morning stop sits in a colorful North Beach strip building and pulls espresso from Dancing Goats beans with the kind of care you'd find in a serious city cafe. The menu runs through smoothies, frappes, breakfast burritos, and homemade pastries. Lines form on summer mornings but the staff moves at speed and the local art covering every wall makes the wait easy.
Trails & outdoors
McQueen's Island Historical Trail
Built on the bed of the Savannah & Atlantic Railroad that carried passengers to Tybee Island from 1887 onward, this 10.9-mile crushed-stone out-and-back follows the estuarial edge of McQueen's Island between Fort Pulaski and Tybee. The flat grade makes it genuinely easy despite the distance, and the bracketing salt marsh offers nonstop wildlife — alligators, wading birds, and the occasional dolphin in the creek channels.
Sally Pearce Nature Trail
A short, peaceful nature path on the south side of Highway 80 near the center of the island that winds through maritime scrub and coastal wetland — a genuine surprise given that it sits a few minutes from the main beach strip. The trail crosses its mirror image, the Blue Heron Nature Trail, on the north side of the road, and together they make a useful pairing for a morning walk away from the beach crowd.
Things to do
Tybee Post Theater
A beautifully restored 1930 military post theater inside Fort Screven's officer row — the only dedicated arts venue on the island, run entirely by volunteers and presenting first-run and classic films, live music, comedy, lectures, and theatrical performances year-round. The intimate 250-seat room has exceptional acoustics and genuinely comfortable seating; the concessions are old-fashioned and the prices still look like it.
Sea Kayak Georgia
The oldest kayak outfitter on the island and the most reliable way to reach Little Tybee — their naturalist-guided half-day ecotours launch from the Back River and cross to the uninhabited island via tidal creek and open water, with stops to identify birds, track dolphin behavior, and explore the deserted beach. Founded in 1994 and staffed by genuine coastal ecologists.
Landmarks & sights
Tybee Island Light Station and Museum
Georgia's oldest and tallest lighthouse has stood at the island's north tip since the colonial era, its 145-foot tower still an active aid to navigation. The grounds include three keeper's cottages and a fascinating military battery museum across the street inside Fort Screven. Climb all 178 steps for a panoramic sweep of the Georgia coast, barrier islands, and open Atlantic.
Fort Pulaski National Monument
One of the best-preserved nineteenth-century masonry fortifications in the country, Fort Pulaski sits on Cockspur Island at the mouth of the Savannah River and tells the story of how rifled artillery rendered brick forts obsolete during the Civil War. The 5,600-acre compound also encompasses salt marshes, bald eagle habitat, and McQueen's Island, making it as compelling for birders as for history fans.