Tybee Island

Tybee Island is so close to Atlanta that many locals here refer to it as “Atlanta’s beach”. Depend­ing on where you live in Atlanta it only takes 3.5 to 4 hours of drive time to travel to Tybee Island.

Tybee means salt and was named by the Euchee Native Amer­i­can Indian Tribe. This laid-back bar­rier island is 18 miles east of Savan­nah, Geor­gia. About 3600 res­i­dents call Tybee home but dur­ing the sum­mer the resort towns pop­u­la­tion increases to over 12,000.

Famous homeowner’s on this inti­mate 3 mile long island include John Mel­len­camp and San­dra Bul­lock. Miley Cyrus has spent most of the sum­mer here for the film­ing of her most recent movie “The Last Song”.

Although not con­sid­ered as posh as Hilton Head or St. Simons Island, Tybee Island is a pop­u­lar vaca­tion spot due to its casual envi­ron­ment. Recent build­ing codes limit the height of struc­tures to three sto­ries cre­at­ing a low key warmth not felt in other notable beach com­mu­ni­ties. Tybee Island also ben­e­fits from its close prox­im­ity to one of the most beau­ti­ful cities on the east coast — Savan­nah, Geor­gia.

The most pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tion on Tybee is known as the Tybee Island Light­house. This is one of the few 18th cen­tury light­houses still in oper­a­tion across the coun­try. Other attrac­tions besides the beau­ti­ful 3 mile long sandy beach on Tybee include the Pier and Fort Screven. His­tory buffs shouldn’t miss out on the Fort Pulaski National Mon­u­ment located just west of the island on High­way 80.