We have been visiting this area for about 30 years. The hurricane devastation can still be seen in the wooded areas, tree trunks without any branches. Kinda sad, but the area is still alive with wildlife, if you are patient , and have a good eye. The road along the beach is still as beautiful as ever, tho prone to flooding during bad weather, since it is at sea level. Fort Pickens is a great place to visit for kids (and adults) of all ages. The tours are quite informative.

My first impression..an area devestated by Hurricanes past. OK, accepted. What could be done now to make place better? ...On arrival the beach was beautiful as always.The campground however left much to be desired. I passed 4 park rangers shooting radar at entering vehicles.. good! Safe place. However, it could have maybe had 2 shooting radar and 2 cutting grass as weeds were knee high.However,grass in some areas did get cut during trip.Drove to Langdon Beach because of the distance from campground to beach.The beach workers looking for tar balls probably the worst part of trip. With teenage daughters tanning by our side, these workers must have made 20 trips past us trying to look busy with their wondering eyes (biggest waste of money I've seen in a while)...The campgroung is in the center of the island so it's a good hike to beach in blazing hot sand. After a couple of days, learned how to pack for hike to beach without tar ball workers.BACKPACK EVERYTHING !! Once learning this, had some great afternoons with my family on a sandbar straight out of a Corona Beer commercial. Those times made any negative things disppear. After all, I was there for the beach and family thing. I slowly fell in love with the place and will be back. Wrote down shaded camp site #'s for next time as many have little or no shade and heat indexes were above 100. Bring bug spray and bicycles. Great bike trails.Will return there to make new memories and lasting impressions.

In case you don't know yet. The road to Fort Pickens reopened earlier this year.

I didn't camp. I was checking it out as I also dive; and one of the best shore dives in the area is down by the fort.

My understanding is the campground still needs a lot of work and is only available as a primitive campground. But you may want to check..

The campground store was still boarded up. Though I understand there is limited supplies at the visitor center.

Hopefully we'll be able to camp there soon.

My husband and I went there several times a year every year for 20 years until the hurricanes damaged this beautiful area. I have been to many beaches in the carribean but nothing compares to the beauty that lies here.. The water was always a beautiful emerald green and sapphire blue and the sand was so white !!
It is my hope that the National Park Service will get the road going to Ft. Pickens and the campgrounds open soon, this place is too pretty to just let it sit there with nothing being done to it. I want to go back !!