Explore Gulf Shores through a range of interests: the coast, trails through natural areas, and insights into local history each offer a different perspective. To help plan your visit, first decide whether you’d rather spend time at the beach, on a trail, or exploring exhibits.
Beach and Trails in Gulf State Park
The Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail is a paved, shared-use, ADA-accessible trail system with at least 28 miles of trails through Gulf State Park. The park offers hiking, biking, fishing, geocaching, and paddling. The Lake Shelby day-use area also has opportunities for kayaking and canoeing.
The coast is also part of Gulf State Park: its park area in Gulf Shores has more than 3.5 miles of white-sand beach. The beach and trails offer different ways to spend your time. You can plan your visit around whether you’d like to focus on the coastline or activities in the park.
Experience Wetlands and Landscapes
Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Gulf Shores covers about 7,000 acres. Its landscape ranges from beach dunes to rolling pine-oak forests. Trails in the refuge pass through dunes, dune swales, wetlands, maritime forests, and scrubland.
At Wade Ward Nature Park, an elevated boardwalk offers views of the wetlands connecting Little Lagoon and Lake Shelby. The park is also a site on the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail. Wetlands Park offers a different kind of trail: its gravel loop goes around a fishing pond. The park has benches, a pedestrian bridge, and a fishing pier. The trails can be distinguished by their specific features: an extensive paved trail system, an elevated boardwalk with views of wetlands, or a loop around a pond.
Local History and Natural History
The Gulf Shores Museum features the “Portrait of a Fishing Village” exhibit. It introduces the families who settled along the north side of Little Lagoon in the 19th century. Another exhibit, “Hurricanes - What you Need to Know,” explains how hurricanes form, the destruction they cause, and how a community rebuilds after a hurricane. Admission to the museum is free to the public.
The Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo also offers presentations by animal care staff throughout the park at different times and locations. Since schedules may change, check the latest information before your visit.
Choose the Focus of Your Trip
The activities cater to different interests, without requiring you to limit yourself to just one kind of outing. For time on the coast, there’s the white-sand beach in the park area; for nature trails, explore the varied landscapes of Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge and the trails in the parks. The Gulf Shores Museum adds a local-history experience. As you plan, consider which of these experiences matters most to you, and choose your activities accordingly. If you enjoy walking, the trail surface and design can help you choose: the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail is paved and ADA-accessible, while Wetlands Park’s loop around the fishing pond is gravel.
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For the main travel overview: Baldwin.
