The Forgotten Coast of Florida | Port St. Joe and Cape San Blas

Why we love the forgotten coast of florida as a family

As you know – we love living on the Coast and all things/places coastal as a family! One of our (secret) favorite places to go on vacation as someone who lives at the beach is to what is known as The Forgotten Coast of Florida – specifically Port St Joe and Cape San Blas!

You can see two videos I made of our trip this year here and here.

We have been going to the forgotten coast as a family for three years now. Let me tell you – I am so drawn to the raw, untouched beauty of the forgotten coast. It is still quaint, quiet, without tons of condos, restaurants and stores.

Don’t get me wrong. I love 30A. But when my heart longs to be where the wild things are, if I can, I know that the Forgotten Coast of Florida is the place to go.

The first year Cory, R and I stayed on Cape San Blas. We found the perfect little house on Saint Joseph’s Bay and squeezed our then boat in the parking lot. We walked multiple times a day across the parking lot to the Scallop Cove General Store to get ice cream, supplies or surprises for R in the back part of the store for kid’s toys. We took the boat out multiple times through the Joseph Peninsula State Park. I was drawn in the wild coastline, huge sting rays we saw and massive seashells we collected. Since there are very few restaurants on Cape San Blas, we would go home and cook dinner then walk across the street to the beach for sunset. We had a dock on St. Joseph’s Bay that came with the house so early in the mornings Cory would go out there to fish. One morning we saw a huge buck with antlers swimming across the bay!! Do you understand what I mean now when I say wild?

This year and the last we stayed in Port St. Joe with my whole family. While Cape San Blas is my favorite place to be because of the fond memories Cory, R and I have had there, I have some of the most intense family memories from the house we stay at in port St. Joe but that’s a story for another day.

I will share one with you, though. Last year when we were staying at the house in Port St. Joe I got a call in the middle of the night from S’s orphanage all the way in India. I was asleep but eventually the vibrating of my phone woke me up. When I saw it was her orphanage I quickly jumped out of bed and answered the video call. It was her birthday. They had gotten her a birthday cake and wanted us to see them sing her happy birthday. I sat on the bathroom floor, trying not to awake anyone else, and watched my baby girl on the other side of the world celebrate her birthday.

This year she was with us at that same house in Port St. Joe. She took baths and brushed her teeth in the same bathroom that I, just one year before, sat on the floor of watching her be sang to by the only people she had known. To have her there with us this year running after her sister and cousins on the familiar boardwalks and beaches was surreal. It is crazy what a difference a year of time can make.

Things To Do In Port St Joe

Some of our favorite things to do in Port St Joe are to ride bikes around WindMark Beach and get ice cream there. We also love going downtown to get Shoobies every year, get groceries from the Pig and have to go to Bluewater Outriggers.

We also took family portraits of my sisters’ family one night in Port St. Joe.

So, when I say to families that I photograph that I get vacation family pictures it is because I actually do! Kids are tired, sunburnt and on vacation time. Parents are trying to keep all things together. It can be chaos but man, it is also good. It really is.

Cape San Blas Things To Do

Some of our favorite things to do in Cape San Blas have been going to Driftwood Beach except this year when we went we couldn’t get to the beach at least with young kids. This was such a shame but we ended up making our way down to the bay in Joseph Peninsula State Park. There we found a ton of whole sand dollars!! It became a competition on who could find the most and all of the kids found one which was so fun to celebrate.

I hope you guys loved reading this. Don’t tell everyone about our favorite forgotten coast. It is still Florida’s best kept secret.

Oh, and read the book Saints of Old Florida. A local creative business owner who lives here wrote it about all the towns that make up the forgotten coast of Florida. It is beautiful and such a neat read!

You can catch up with where we like to go as a family here.