Sebastian Inlet State Park — Attraction in Orchid Island

TLDR: fantastic little park, super busy during the weekends but a great weekday stop.

We've been doing our homeschool history for 9th grade by visiting as many of the state parks as we can and incorporating the local history of the area into the visit. Despite living in the area for many years we have never visited the Sebastian inlet State Park. Finally got the chance to with one of the many local homeschool groups.

The bathrooms were clean, and well stocked. There's a little restaurant on site that serves your run of the mill American food. Great fishing off the jetty side of the park, a beautiful beach on the beach side of the park, and a great little swimming area for young kids on the cove side of the park.

There are two entrances one north of the bridge and one south of the bridge on A1A. The Northern entrance gets you into beachside and the cove and the restaurant. The southern entrance gets you onto the jetty and hiking trails. It's kind of confusing because there's not much signage on A1A other than just state park signs, it would be a good idea for whoever runs these facilities to put some more signage out on the road. Just know that if you're driving south on A1A the first state park entrance before the bridge that you see is the one for the restaurant, the cove and beachside.

Parking is kind of limited, and all of our friends have said that this place is absolutely a nightmare to get into on the weekends If you aren't there right at opening. It's $8 for your run-of-the-mill vehicle to go in, however if you're frequent visitor to Florida State Parks go to the state parks website and get yourself a yearly state park pass. You'll save a ton of money and time. There's also a program for fourth graders in the state to get a free state park pass, I don't know much about it but I have heard about it, And I'm sure that a state park ranger at any of the state parks could tell you more.

All of the areas that we went through were clean and well managed. We went on a weekday and it was kind of chilly (75 is chilly for Florida girl, lol) so there weren't a ton of people around which was really quite nice. We saw several dolphins just off the jetty, one inside the cove area, there was a manatee in the cove, lots of birds and fish and other aquatic life. We also saw a rocket launch, several helicopters, and some military boats and the soldiers on the boats interacted with us which the kids thought was absolutely awesome.

All in all we would definitely consider coming back, especially on the weekdays not during...

My wife and I camped here for two nights on 17-19 August, 2025. I booked the reservation online about a month prior to our visit using the Florida State Park's app. I had tried to camp here last winter, (snowbird season) and it was booked solid from December through March. We arrived at the park about noon, but the Ranger at the office would not let us check in early. She did however, allow us to drop our travel trailer in the parking lot beside the park office so we could drive down to nearby Vero Beach to do some exploring. We got back to the park at about 5:00 pm, got checked in, and set up in our Campsite (#9), which was overlooking the water, but had zero shade trees around it (and it was very hot during our stay). The site had water and electric hookups, but as with most Florida State Parks, you had to use a dump station near the campground exit to empty your holding tank. The restroom/shower facility was only about a 75 yard walk away, and it was clean and had good hot water pressure and decent ventilation (but no air conditioning). This is a very nice State Park and its very popular, particularly with surfers and saltwater fishermen. The beaches on both the north and south sides of the inlet are nice, but you have to be careful when there is any kind of storm brewing in the Atlantic because they rip currents can get very dangerous. There is also a nice and calm swimming lagoon on the north side and to the west of US Hwy A1A where it's safe for kids to swim. There are also lots of pavilions and picnic tables available. There is a concession building on the north side of the inlet near the jetty, but it's still closed after getting ravaged by hurricanes over the past few years. We did notice there were two food truck vendors parked in the area under the north off ramp of the bridge. It does get very hot and buggy here during the summer months, but the winter months in this area are delightfully pleasant with low humidity and mostly clear skies. If you are "Glamper" like my wife and I (i.e., we don't cook at the campsite, but rather dine out), then you will have to drive about 12 miles south to Vero Beach, or about 15 miles north to Melbourne Beach to find any restaurants. Vero Beach has several very good restaurants that run the full gambit of shabby to sheik. Melbourne Beach only has a small handful, but we at a place up there called Sand on the Beach that...

We got a last minute reservation here and I'm glad we did! This campground offers tent and RV camping and we are tent campers so it was nice to see some spots available. If you love to fish, then this state park is for you! You can also bring your boat and launch from the park if you want to head out to sea or just fish the inlet. We didn't bring our boat this time since it was last minute, but next time we will. There was a ton of seaweed in the water during our trip, making fishing from the shore a little difficult, but you can't change mother nature so we just rolled with it. Each campsite is quite level with small pebbles, making it easy to set up your tent and not have giant rocks poking you in the back all night. You also get electric and water hookups as well as a fire ring and picnic table. You can purchase fire wood from the ranger station for $10 a bundle. We had two different campsites whole we were there, site 26 and 41 and enjoyed both of them. 26 gives you a small water view of the inlet, but is quite loud early in the morning with all the boats going out of the inlet, so if that bothers you, you may prefer 41 which was on the back row and was much quieter. We liked both spots equally. The park also offers tons of fishing piers and fishing access from the shore as well as a couple of different beach accesses. There are two portions of the park, the North side which is more for swimming and beach going and the South side which is where the camping is and seems to be geared more towards fishing. The park is also open 24 hours a day to the public. Make sure to bring your bug spray because the no-see-ums were out in force! We saw tons of amazing birds and there is a very healthy populations of rabbits and they were so cute. We even saw a bobcat one evening, but don't worry, he didn't approach. Just kind of checked us out from afar, and went about his business. They also have a really nice museum and gift shop you can check out! It was a really fun experience and we will definitely...