amelia and the southern sea islands

Amelia Island is the northernmost island on Florida’s Atlantic coast and one of the southernmost in of a string of more than 100 barrier islands off the coast of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The Timucua are its earliest-known residents, said to have lived here as long as 12,000 years ago. Since then, Colonial settlers, pirates, farmers, slaves, soldiers, shrimpers and railroad entrepreneurs have all left their mark on the island. Even William Bartram traveled here in 1774 while documenting plant life in the South. Amelia and neighboring Big Talbot, Little Talbot and Fort George Islands are where I go to slow down, often spending long days exploring the beaches, marshes, waterways, maritime forests and historic sites that give the islands a sense of place.