Camping on Cape San Blas
For a week we called T.H. Stone Memorial St. Joseph Peninsula State Park home—parking the RV out on Cape San Blas and letting the days revolve around sand, sky, and whatever wandered or flew past our campsite. This stretch of protected coastline, established as a state park in 1967, is known for its sugar-white beaches, tall dunes, and the wild backcountry caught between St. Joseph Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
We tried to sample just about everything the park offers: hiking sandy trails, running roads and single-track, biking under the pines, wandering the Gulf shoreline, and birdwatching along the bay. Bald eagles watched from high perches and high overhead, while hawks, falcons, white pelicans, shorebirds, and songbirds filled the air. On the ground we crossed paths with deer, armadillos, and an otter scampering back and forth between the beach and the marsh. Evenings brought stargazing on a dark, empty beach—and a rare treat: northern lights that showed up only in long-exposure photos.
The park is still carrying the marks of Hurricane Michael, which cut a new channel through the peninsula in 2018 and forced a major rebuild of roads, dunes, and campground areas. Much of it has been restored, and new facilities continue to come online, but you can still feel the raw power of what happened here. Camping here now, you can feel both the scars and the steady recovery.
And nature wasn’t shy about showing its rough side on this trip either. Evidence of red tide washed up along nearly every shoreline. It did not discriminate between its victims. The 250 photos on this page tell the full story of our time at St. Joseph Peninsula—its beauty, its wildlife, its resilience, and the honest truth that even a place this stunning fights its own battles.
