We recently came back from our first beach vacation since the pandemic started. We’ve visited family but not a vacation or beach. Peyton kept telling me she wanted to go to the beach for her birthday (July 7th) but I couldn’t find anywhere that was available and/or decent price. I pretty much gave up and was going to let her have friends over at the house. Then a friend of mine posted that she recently purchased a vacation property in Gulf Shores, AL, I started asking questions. She said she was renovating it but it would be ready next week… the week of Peyton’s birthday! I asked her if she willing to let me rent it first. She said yes! Seven days later, we drove 6 hours to Gulf Shores! Here are the details from our trip.
That’s one thing about Atlanta, we may be in the middle of the state but we’re only 4-6 hours away from some beautiful beaches. I’ve only been to the Gulf beaches once to Panama City, Florida but this was my first time to Gulf Shores, AL. Gulf beaches are beautiful!
Where we stayed: We stayed at My Beach Retreat by Nick. What I learned about Gulf beaches is hotels are very limited. Unless you’re cool with a sketchy college spring break type of accommodations, you basically need to Air B&B or know someone with a condo. I think that is one of the reasons why you don’t hear much about these beaches. You can book My Beach Retreat by Nick HERE or shoot them an email at [email protected].
What We Did: Gulf Shores is a family friendly beach. If you want to get away from kids you may have a hard time here.
- The Track. It’s a mini amusement park with rides for small kids, go carts and more. They also have an indoor arcade, perfect it it’s a rainy day.
- Beachside picnic with Souther Charm Picnic Company. Instead of going out for dinner, I booked a picnic with Souther Charm Picnic Company. It was so beautiful and Peyton loved it! You can see the photos above.
- Family photo shoot with Lily’s Rose Photography. If you’ve come all the way to Gulf Shores, then you MUST get family beach photos. I seriously want to get large scale prints of these to hang all over the house.
- Chill at the beach. Isn’t that why we’re here!? The sand is soft and clean unlike the Atlantic coast beaches. Instead of hauling chairs to the beach, we were able to rent lounge chairs with an umbrella for the day.
Where to Eat: Let me just say, I came with a belly full of shrimp! While I ate all the fried shrimp I could find, Mister was on an oyster mission!
- Sassy Bass located in the building of our condo. Drinks are amazing!
- Food Truck park at The Village Lawn. This was so cute and they had live music and a bounce house for the kids.
- The Hangout. The food was like upscale fast food but the experience was great. They have an MC and the waiters (mainly college kids) would do line dances and they encouraged guests to join in. The highlight was they have foam parties every hour. The girls loved that.
- The Original Oyster House. Everything we had there was good. I don’t eat oysters like that but Mister killed them!
- Kiva Dunes Beach Club. We went here for breakfast. It was really good and next to our condo. I think they have a buffet but I don’t really do buffets especially with Covid.
- Rouses Market. This is a cute grocery store that has a lot of prepared foods that you can heat up at the condo. We also picked up Peyton’s birthday cake there.
We had a great time and great memories. I think this will be our yearly family trip. If you have any questions leave them in the comments. I’m a little rusty at blogging so I may have missed some things.
Have you been to the Gulf beaches? Where did you stay and do?
