Every Beach on the Space Coast: A Local’s Guide From Playalinda to Sebastian Inlet (2026)

Oct 10

Quick answer: The Space Coast beach runs from Canaveral National Seashore in the north to Sebastian Inlet in the south, and the county parks along it are free to park at: Lori Wilson, Paradise Beach, Spessard Holland, Ponce de Leon Landing and Canova. The two cities on the beach charge: Cocoa Beach meters are $6 an hour or $25 a day, and Satellite Beach charges at its lots year-round with a free pass for residents. Dogs are allowed on the sand at Canova Beach in Indian Harbour Beach and on a stretch of Cocoa Beach south of 4th Street in the early morning and evening, and nowhere else. Playalinda costs $25 a car for a week, closes for launches and has the closest view of one you can get. Jetty Park at the port is where the cruise ships and rockets go by. Sea turtles nest March through October and some beaches down south see more than a thousand nests a mile. If you're buying on the beach side of A1A, the lighting rules and the flood zone are the two things to understand first.

When people move here from a landlocked state, the first thing they want is the beach, and the second thing they want is to know which one. The answer depends on whether you want to surf, fish, walk a dog, watch a rocket, let the kids run, or sit in a chair with nobody within fifty yards. The Space Coast has a beach for each of those, and most of them are free. Here's the list from north to south, with what it costs and what the rules are as of early October. Fees and hours change; check before you go.

Canaveral National Seashore: Playalinda and Apollo

The top of the county is a national park: 24 miles of undeveloped beach between the Kennedy Space Center and New Smyrna. Playalinda is the south end, reached through Titusville, and it's thirteen parking lots along a four-mile road, each with a boardwalk and a restroom and no showers. Apollo is the north end, reached from New Smyrna, with five lots and 160 spaces. The roadless stretch between them is called Klondike and you walk in. Entry is $25 a car and good for seven days, $20 for a motorcycle, $15 on foot or bike, under 16 free, and the park's annual pass is $45. Card only, no cash, and you can only buy it at the two entrance stations. Hours are 6 to 8 in summer and 6 to 6 in winter. No dogs on the beach or the boardwalks. The park closes the road at the gate half an hour before a launch and closes the beach within a quarter mile of the KSC boundary, then reopens after liftoff or a scrub, and it stops letting cars in when the lots fill. That inconvenience is also the point: nowhere else lets you stand on sand this close to a pad.

On the question everyone asks: Playalinda is not an official nude beach. Brevard County has had a public nudity ordinance since 1995, the sheriff rarely patrols federal land, rangers act on lewd conduct, and the Park Service will tell you nudists have historically used the far north end of Playalinda. Lot 13 is the de facto spot. If that's not your thing, stop at lot 8 and you'll never know.

Jetty Park, Port Canaveral

Jetty Park sits at the mouth of the port, and it's the only beach in the county where a cruise ship goes by close enough to wave at. It has a 1,200-foot fishing pier (no license needed on the pier, no fishing off the rocks), a campground with RV and tent sites and cabins, a camp store, and lifeguards year-round. Open 7 to 9, with changes on launch days. You buy the vehicle pass online in advance at the port's shop; there's no booth and no cash, and walkers and cyclists get in free. Third-party sites list it around $15 a car with a Brevard resident rate, but the port doesn't publish the number where I could read it, so check when you book. No glass, no pets, no fires, no cars, no drones on the beach. On a launch morning the campground is the best seat in the county that doesn't involve a boat.

Cocoa Beach

Cocoa Beach is the surf town, and it costs money to park. City meters are $6 an hour with a one-hour minimum, $25 for the day, enforced 7 to 7 every day, and there are about forty street ends with meters. Alan Shepard Park at the end of the causeway has 323 spaces and Sidney Fischer Park on North Atlantic has 109, both paid. The Westgate Cocoa Beach Pier on Meade Avenue is 800 feet of restaurants and bars over the water, built in 1962 and owned by Westgate since 2014; the Easter Surfing Festival has run there since 1964 and the NKF surf festival every October. There's a bronze of Kelly Slater, who grew up here, at 508 North Orlando Avenue, and the Ron Jon on North Atlantic is the biggest one there is, with the Florida Surf Museum inside the rental store.

The free option in Cocoa Beach is the county's Lori Wilson Park at 1500 North Atlantic: 32 acres, two free lots, a boardwalk through a maritime hammock, pavilions, a lifeguard tower staffed daily 10 to 5, and a fenced off-leash dog park next to the beach (not on it). The lifeguards at the pier, Shepard Park, Lori Wilson and Minutemen Causeway are the full-time towers; the rest of the county's towers are seasonal.

Cocoa Beach also allows dogs on the sand in one zone: from 4th Street South to the north side of Murkshe Park at 16th Street South, on a leash no longer than ten feet, mornings 6 to 10 and evenings 4 to 7 (5 to 9 in daylight time), entering inside the zone. The fine is $50 if you miss the hours. And yes, you can bring a drink to the beach in Cocoa Beach; no glass.

Patrick Space Force Base to Satellite Beach

South of Cocoa Beach, A1A runs past the base with five pull-off lots and no hotels, which is how you get an empty beach ten minutes from the pier. Tables Beach has the ramp, the shower and the pavilion. No fee, no lifeguards.

Satellite Beach is seventeen crossovers, no lifeguards, and no pets on the city's beaches. Pelican Beach Park has 131 spaces, pavilions and two volleyball courts; Hightower Beach Park is 18 acres with 2,800 feet of beachfront, a 560-foot boardwalk and only 31 spaces. The city charges for parking 7 to 7, 365 days a year. Residents get a free pass; non-residents can get a free pass good at Pelican and Hightower East only, or pay $75 a year for all the lots. The thing Satellite Beach does that nobody else does: beach bonfire permits, November 1 through the end of February, Friday to Sunday 6 to midnight, at ten designated sites at Hightower and Pelican, $50 for residents and $100 for everyone else plus a $100 deposit. A bonfire on the beach in January is a serious reason to live in this zip code.

Canova Beach: the dog beach

Canova Beach Park at 3299 Highway A1A in Indian Harbour Beach is the county's dog beach: nine acres, three crossovers, free parking, dogs allowed on the sand on a leash with tags. It's the one place in Brevard a dog can get its feet in the ocean all day, and every golden retriever in the county knows it.

Indialantic and Paradise Beach

Indialantic's boardwalk at Fifth Avenue is the town's front porch; Nance Park on North Miramar has the playground. Just north, the county's Paradise Beach (officially Howard E. Futch Memorial Park) at 2301 North A1A is the family beach for Melbourne: twelve acres, free parking, three pavilions, four volleyball courts, a playground, showers and a lifeguard tower the county staffs daily 10 to 5. If you live in Melbourne or Viera and don't want to think, this is your beach.

Melbourne Beach and the turtle coast

South of the Melbourne Causeway the beach changes. The crowds thin, the houses get older, and the sand is full of turtles. The county's Spessard Holland North and South parks at 2525 and 2545 A1A have free parking, pavilions, showers and seasonal lifeguards, and the golf course across the road is a separate county operation. No dogs, and no fires between March 1 and November 1. Juan Ponce de Leon Landing at 4005 A1A is 25 acres and free, marking where the Spanish claim to have landed on April 2, 1513; no lifeguards. Val M. Steele Park, which locals still call Coconut Point, is 37 acres and two crossovers and a nesting site.

All of this sits inside the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, 20 miles from Melbourne Beach to Wabasso and the most important loggerhead nesting beach in the world. 2026 was a record: more than 12,000 green turtle nests and 4,100 loggerhead nests in the refuge by late August, and the county as a whole had more than 53,000 nests in 2025. Some stretches down here see more than a thousand nests a mile. The Barrier Island Center at 8385 South A1A, open Tuesday to Sunday 9 to 5, is where you learn what that means for your porch light.

Sebastian Inlet State Park

The south end of the county is the inlet, and it's open 24 hours. $8 a car, $4 for a single occupant, $2 on foot or bike. Fifty-one campsites at $28 a night plus the reservation fee, a boat ramp for $4, the McLarty Treasure Museum for $2, two accessible jetties, three miles of beach, no pets on the sand. Surfers know First Peak off the north jetty and Monster Hole outside; anglers know the north jetty and the catwalks under the bridge. One thing to plan around: bridge construction started in May 2026 and the beach access from the south side is closed while it runs, so come in from the north.

The rules that apply everywhere

Turtle season is March 1 through October 31. The county's beachfront lighting ordinance runs May 1 through October 31, Melbourne Beach wants lights visible from the beach off after 9 during the season, and Satellite Beach bans lights on the beach 9 to 7 from March through October. If you buy on the ocean side of A1A, your windows, porch lights and landscape lighting are part of the deal; it's not hard, but you need the right fixtures.

Lifeguards. The county's full-time towers run daily 10 to 5 at the Cocoa Beach Pier, Shepard Park, Lori Wilson, Minutemen Causeway and Paradise Beach. Seasonal towers run weekends from the last week of May, daily from Memorial Day through the first week of August, and weekends to Labor Day. Everywhere else, you're on your own, and the rip currents here are real.

Driving on the beach isn't a thing here the way it is in Daytona. Fires are limited to the Satellite Beach permit sites in winter. Dogs: Canova all day, Cocoa Beach's zone at the posted hours, and nowhere else on the sand.

Picking a beach town

If you want the surf scene and restaurants, Cocoa Beach, and budget for the condo building rules and the 45-foot height limit that keeps it low. If you want a quiet beach with a bonfire and a tax base that keeps the parks nice, Satellite Beach and Indian Harbour Beach. If you want Melbourne's jobs and Viera's schools with a free beach fifteen minutes away, Paradise Beach is your beach and you live on the mainland. If you want the turtles and the dark and the longest walks, Melbourne Beach down to the inlet. I wrote up the whole Space Coast on the relocation page and Melbourne on its area page; the condo inspection rules for buildings three stories and up are in both.

Questions people ask about Space Coast beaches

Which Space Coast beaches have free parking?

The Brevard County beach parks: Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach, Paradise Beach in Melbourne, Spessard Holland North and South and Juan Ponce de Leon Landing in Melbourne Beach, and Canova Beach in Indian Harbour Beach. The cities of Cocoa Beach and Satellite Beach charge for parking at their lots and meters.

Can I bring my dog to the beach on the Space Coast?

Canova Beach Park in Indian Harbour Beach allows leashed dogs on the sand all day. Cocoa Beach allows leashed dogs from 4th Street South to 16th Street South during posted morning and evening hours. Other Brevard beaches, Jetty Park, the national seashore and Sebastian Inlet do not allow dogs on the sand.

How much does Playalinda Beach cost?

$25 per vehicle for a seven-day pass, $20 per motorcycle and $15 per person on foot or bike, with visitors under 16 free. Payment is by card only at the entrance station. The beach closes for rocket launches.

Where can you watch a rocket launch from the beach?

Playalinda Beach at Canaveral National Seashore is the closest public beach to the pads, though it closes within a quarter mile of the KSC boundary and stops admitting cars when full. Jetty Park at Port Canaveral and the beaches of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach also have clear views.

When is sea turtle nesting season on the Space Coast?

March 1 through October 31. Brevard County's beachfront lighting ordinance applies May 1 through October 31, and the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge from Melbourne Beach south is the most important loggerhead nesting beach in the world.

Can you have a bonfire on the beach?

Only in Satellite Beach, with a permit, from November 1 through the end of February, Friday through Sunday evenings, at designated sites in Hightower and Pelican Beach parks. Permits are $50 for residents and $100 for non-residents plus a deposit.

Talk with William. If beach access is the reason you're moving, tell me which of these sounds like you and I'll show you the streets behind it, from Cape Canaveral to Melbourne Beach. Call or text (772) 800-2274 or send a message.

General information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Prices, fees and club rules change; confirm current details with the club and association. William Merchant, REALTOR®, RE/MAX Gold. Each RE/MAX office is independently owned and operated.

William Merchant