Padre Island Seawall — Local services in Corpus Christi

Want to go to the beach but not drive your car on the sand? This seawall has a large(ish) parking area, is directly next to the beach, and it has real restrooms for those of you who dread the port-o-potty experience.

There's a very long sidewalk stretching almost from the Packery Channel to Whitecap Blvd, all beachfront for anyone who just wants an easy walk perfect for strollers or wheelchairs right along the edge of the sandy beach. Walk along side the condos and hotel fronts, or take a few steps down and get your toes in the sand! The waters edge is very close too if you're up for that, or just enjoy the view.

It doesn't go all the way to the Packery Channel, but it's maybe a couple of hundred yards walk a across the sand to that Jetty, which is provides a concrete path out into the Gulf waters for fishing & sightseeing. You might see Sea Turtles basking in the sun on the jetty rocks. Remember it's illegal to touch or taunt them, so just enjoy the view.

You can relax and de-stress for 15 minutes here, or spend a couple of hours walking, jogging, or just sightseeing. It's totally free, and you'll be glad you went!

This place can be very crowded on holiday periods, and even the street parking can fill up. Non-holidays you can usually find many parking...

I call North Padre Island the Texas Riviera because of the beauty of the sea and its shores along that stretch of the Gulf. The water in Corpus Christi is sort of dark and poluted--not quite like the sea at Houston and Galveston--while at North Padre Island and Aransas Pass it is crystal clear and blue or green in color, with riding waves, and large beaches of daily combed fine sand. I also love the fact that it is shallow for quite a distance into the sea and gradually deepens, without any abrupt depth differences. The birds and tranquility of the surroundings makes this place at Whitecap one of a kind. It's never too crowded, and it's clean. Unfortunatelly, the Holiday Inn hotel you see in the picture is not in use; they've been remodeling it for more than 3 years now...! It used to be the best hotel in the area by far with the outside/inside pools, outside jacuzzi and kids' little pool, the charming landscape, sauna, gym, an excellent restaurant with a window wall facing the ocean, and the Tikki bar by the pool outside with live music. I hope the new version would be close to its past; hopefully...

I'm assuming that we may have just come on the wrong day, because most of the reviews of this beach are pretty good. But we came to an extremely dirty beach which was completely covered in plastic and trash. Water looked like chocolate milk, and the beach was pretty rough. There was a crazy strong rip tide when we went, so the water was pretty much unusable.

Some positives include free trash sacks, clean porta-potties, plenty of convenient trash cans, and the fact that you can drive on the beach. There are some close convenient stores which is nice, and a grocery store as well. The local fuel stops don't seem to jack up the prices like at most island gas stations, so I was pleasantly surprised by that. There was a lot of active wild life, so since we couldn't utilize the water, we had some form of entertainment.

I gave it 3 stars since it's possible it isn't like this all the time, but this won't really be a beach that we will come back to. But if I were to rate it solely on our experience this trip, it really should be more...