Every Beach on the Treasure Coast: A Local’s Guide (2026)

Sep 28

Quick answer: The Treasure Coast has roughly 65 miles of Atlantic beach across Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties, from Sebastian Inlet down to Blowing Rocks, and nearly all of it is public with free parking. Vero Beach has the lifeguarded town beaches and the quiet turtle-nesting stretches of the Archie Carr refuge. Fort Pierce and Hutchinson Island have the inlet jetties, reef snorkeling at Pepper Park, and Walton Rocks, the coast's off-leash dog beach. Stuart has Bathtub Reef, the House of Refuge and Stuart Beach, and Hobe Sound has three and a half miles of undeveloped refuge beach and the limestone blowholes at Blowing Rocks. No building on the barrier islands here is taller than a few stories, which is why the beaches still look the way they do.

I show a lot of houses to people who are moving here for the beach, and almost none of them know how many beaches there are. They know Vero, maybe, or they've heard of Bathtub Reef. What they don't know is that there are about 65 miles of Atlantic shoreline between Sebastian Inlet and Jupiter Island, that there are something like 45 public places to walk onto it, and that the parking at nearly every one of them is free. So this is the whole list, north to south, with what each beach is actually good for and, since this is what I do, which neighborhoods sit behind it.

One thing to understand first. The beaches here are different from Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale because the buildings behind them are short. The barrier islands in all three counties are held to a few stories, so you're looking at dunes and sea grape instead of a wall of towers. It also means the beaches are quieter, the parking lots are smaller, and on a pretty Saturday in March the popular ones fill by mid-morning. Get there early or go to one of the quiet ones. There are plenty.

The beaches at a glance

Lifeguards	Indian River County: Golden Sands, Wabasso, Tracking Station, Jaycee, Humiston, South Beach, Round Island (about 9:10 to 4:50). St. Lucie: Pepper Park and Waveland. Martin: Jensen, Stuart, Bathtub Reef and Hobe Sound (about 10 to 4:30 or 4:50)
Fees	Free parking almost everywhere. Exceptions: Sebastian Inlet State Park $8 a car, Fort Pierce Inlet State Park $6, Avalon State Park $2 honor box, Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge $5. Fort Pierce has been moving toward paid parking at Jetty Park and the causeway lots, so read the signs
Dogs	Walton Rocks in St. Lucie County is the off-leash dog beach. Martin County allows leashed dogs on its beaches outside the guarded swim areas. Indian River County parks and Vero's town beaches do not allow dogs; Indian River Shores allows leashed dogs on its stretch. No dogs at the state parks' beaches, the wildlife refuges or Blowing Rocks
Surf	Sebastian Inlet (First Peak, Monster Hole), Tracking Station and Wabasso in Vero, Fort Pierce Inlet, Chastain and the Stuart Rocks reef break near the House of Refuge
Snorkeling and rocks	Pepper Park's reef and the 1715 fleet wreck offshore, Fort Pierce Inlet, Bathtub Reef at low tide, the Georges Valentine wreck off the House of Refuge, Blowing Rocks and Coral Cove
Sea turtles	March 1 to October 31. The Archie Carr refuge north of Vero is one of the densest loggerhead nesting beaches in the world. Martin County logged about 12,000 loggerhead and 9,700 green turtle nests in 2025. Guided turtle walks at Hobe Sound in June and July

Indian River County: Sebastian to Vero Beach

About 22 miles of coast. The north half is the quiet half, inside the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, with small lots and boardwalks over the dune and not much else. The south half is Vero Beach proper, where the town beaches have lifeguards, restaurants across the street and a Saturday farmers market. Indian River County had a record year for green turtle nests in 2025, more than 4,500, and over 11,000 nests in all, which is why so much of this stretch is dark and undeveloped on purpose.

Sebastian Inlet State Park

The top of the Treasure Coast and the best known surf spot on it. Three miles of beach on both sides of the inlet, the First Peak break on the north side where the pro contests run, Monster Hole for the people who know what they're doing, a calm tidal cove on the south side for kids, camping, and the jetties for fishing. It costs $8 a car and the north lot fills by about 9 on a weekend morning. The state started replacing the A1A bridge over the inlet in June 2026 and the work runs into the early 2030s, so part of the north lot is staging for now. The park stays open.

Ambersand Beach, Treasure Shores and Golden Sands

Three refuge beaches in a row on the north end. Ambersand is a gravel lot and a boardwalk, no restrooms, nobody around. Treasure Shores has 74 spaces, a pirate-ship playground for the kids, restrooms and showers, and no lifeguard. Golden Sands is the first guarded beach coming south, with 128 spaces, pavilions and a playground, and it stays uncrowded because most people keep driving to Vero. If you buy in Sebastian, Orchid Island or Windsor, these are your beaches.

Wabasso Beach

At the end of the Wabasso causeway, 34 spaces, lifeguards, restrooms and a boardwalk. Surfers like it, and so do the treasure hunters, because this is the stretch where the 1715 Spanish fleet went down and coins still wash up after storms. There's food across the road, which not many refuge beaches can say.

Seagrape Trail and Turtle Trail

Two small unguarded accesses south of Wabasso, 20 and 30 spaces, no restrooms, good shelling, and mostly locals from Indian River Shores. Indian River Shores allows leashed dogs on its beach, which makes these two the closest thing Vero has to a dog beach. If you want a quiet walk at sunrise, start here.

Tracking Station Park

Seventy-eight spaces, lifeguards, restrooms and showers, three boardwalks, and the beach Vero's surfers pick when the swell is up. It's tucked between a CVS and a 7-Eleven on A1A, which sounds unglamorous and is exactly why the parking is easier than the town beaches.

Jaycee Park, Sexton Plaza and Humiston Park

These are Vero Beach's town beaches, the ones with Ocean Drive behind them. Jaycee has a paved lot, lifeguards, a playground, volleyball and the Con Beach boardwalk. Sexton Plaza is the beach at the end of Beachland Boulevard, between the Ocean Grill and Mulligan's, with no lot of its own and no guard, and it's where you go for lunch with sand on your feet. Humiston Park is the family beach, guarded, with a playground and the Saturday market in the park. Its boardwalk was destroyed by the 2022 hurricanes, and the city finally signed the contract to rebuild it, with work starting in November 2026 and finishing before spring 2027. The county also rebuilt the dunes from Mariner Village to Riomar over the winter of 2025 and 2026. The neighborhoods behind these beaches, Central Beach and Riomar, are the ones people picture when they say Vero.

South Beach Park

At the ocean end of the 17th Street bridge, the widest beach in Vero, guarded, restrooms and showers, and the one that's actually gaining sand while most of the coast loses it. The Moorings and Castaway Cove are right there. If you're comparing Vero's island neighborhoods, the Moorings guide and the John's Island guide cover the two ends of that market.

Round Island

The last beach before the St. Lucie County line, and two parks in one. The oceanside has 73 spaces, lifeguards, five pavilions and showers. The riverside across A1A has a 400-foot boardwalk over the lagoon where manatees gather in winter, an observation tower, a fishing pier and boat ramps. Take the kids to the manatees first, then the beach.

St. Lucie County: North and South Hutchinson Island

Twenty-one miles of coast, split in half by the Fort Pierce Inlet. North Hutchinson Island is mostly state park and refuge with a few condo towers. South Hutchinson Island is a long, thin strip of small county beaches with names most people have never heard, and that's the point. St. Lucie County put about 400,000 cubic yards of sand on the Fort Pierce beaches south of the inlet in the spring of 2026, and the Army Corps did another three miles or so on the south end of the island from Normandy Beach to the Martin County line, so the beaches are as wide as they've been in years.

Avalon State Park

More than a mile of undeveloped beach eight miles north of Fort Pierce, $2 in an honor box, restrooms and showers, no lifeguard, and the odd chunk of World War II concrete in the surf from when the Navy trained frogmen here. Dark at night for the turtles. The condos on North Hutchinson Island, Ocean Harbour North and Atlantic View among them, use this as their quiet beach.

Pepper Park

The best snorkeling beach in the county. A reef sits about 100 yards off the sand, the Urca de Lima, a 1715 fleet wreck, is a state underwater preserve just offshore, and there are lifeguards year-round, restrooms and showers across 52 acres. The National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum is next door and worth an afternoon on its own.

Fort Pierce Inlet State Park

Three hundred forty acres on the north side of the inlet, $6 a car, surf when there's swell, reef snorkeling when there isn't, and the south jetty for fishing. No lifeguard, and the lot closes when it fills. Dynamite Point on the inlet side is for birds, not swimming.

Jetty Park, South Beach, Kimberly Bergalis and Surfside

Fort Pierce's town beaches, on the south side of the inlet along Seaway Drive and South Ocean Drive. Jetty Park has the south jetty, restrooms, showers and the fishing. South Beach Park has a pavilion, grills and a free lot. Kimberly Bergalis Memorial Park and Surfside have pavilions and showers a little farther down. These are the beaches that got the new sand in 2026, and they're a five-minute drive from downtown Fort Pierce and the Saturday farmers market on the water.

Blue Heron, Frederick Douglass and Middle Cove

Small county beaches heading south. Blue Heron is four acres and 30 spaces. Frederick Douglass Memorial Park has pavilions and is where the county runs guided horseback rides on the beach, which is a thing you can do here. Middle Cove is a dozen spaces and a dune crossover.

Blind Creek Beach

A wide, wild beach with big dunes, free parking, no lifeguard and no dogs. Fair warning so nobody is surprised: the county designated a stretch of it clothing-optional in 2020, so families tend to walk the other direction.

Walton Rocks

The dog beach. Twenty-four acres where dogs can run off leash, with restrooms, free parking and no lifeguard. It's the only off-leash beach on the Treasure Coast, so it's busy on weekends and the regulars all know each other. If you're moving here with a dog, the pet-friendly neighborhoods guide covers the rest.

Ocean Bay, Herman's Bay, Normandy, Dollman and Waveland

The south end of Hutchinson Island is a string of small county accesses off South Ocean Drive with a few spaces each and a crossover. Ocean Bay has a short dune loop trail. Herman's Bay has three pavilions. Dollman Park is 143 acres with a paved lot and showers. Waveland, at the Martin County line, is the biggest of them, with lifeguards year-round, restrooms, showers, and the start of the 13-mile bike path down the island. This is the stretch behind Ocean Village, Nettles Island, Island Dunes and Harbour Isle, and it's where you go when Stuart Beach is full.

Martin County: Jensen Beach, Stuart and Hobe Sound

More than 22 miles of beach, every one of them with free parking, and four with lifeguards: Jensen, Stuart, Bathtub Reef and Hobe Sound. Martin County also lets you bring a leashed dog to any of its beaches as long as you stay out of the guarded swim areas during lifeguard hours, which is a friendlier rule than either county to the north. Stuart has been named the best coastal small town in America by USA Today readers, first in 2024 and second in 2026, and these beaches are a big part of why. The Army Corps rebuilt about four miles of beach from the St. Lucie line to Stuart Beach in April 2026, fully federally funded, so Jensen is wide again.

Glascock Beach

The first Martin County beach coming south, at County Line Road, quiet, with restrooms and no lifeguard. Fishing, shelling and walking, and the north-end Jensen condos like Islandia and Island Dunes behind it.

Jensen Beach Park (Sea Turtle Beach)

The county's biggest ocean park, at the end of the Jensen Beach causeway. Lifeguards daily, lots of free parking, volleyball, pavilions and grills, and the surf when it's up. The Sand Dune Cafe on the beach burned on New Year's Eve 2024 and was torn down, and the county has approved a new raised Sea Turtle Beach Cafe with about 100 seats, with construction expected to start in early 2027. Until then there's one small restroom building, so plan accordingly. Downtown Jensen Beach, five minutes across the causeway, is the walkable village that goes with this beach.

Bob Graham, Bryn Mawr, Beachwalk Pasley and Tiger Shores

Four quiet accesses between Jensen and Stuart, all unguarded, all free, all fine for a leashed dog. Bob Graham is undeveloped, good for fishing and where the county cut the ribbon on the 2026 sand project. Beachwalk Pasley has ample parking, restrooms and a picnic area, and the coastal trail connects it to Bob Graham on foot. Tiger Shores is a fishing beach with a mitigation reef offshore. Bryn Mawr is a dune walkover and about 20 cars. The Indian River Plantation condos and the Marriott's Hutchinson Island resort are the neighborhood here.

Virginia Forrest and Stuart Beach

Virginia Forrest is a small swim and snorkel beach with no facilities. Stuart Beach next to it is Martin County's main event: lifeguards, a few hundred free spaces, a boardwalk, playground, volleyball and basketball, pavilions, the Seaside Cafe, chair rentals, showers and restrooms. Across the road are the Elliott Museum and the Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center with its 750,000-gallon lagoon aquarium. It fills on a good surf day. Downtown Stuart is ten minutes over the bridge.

Curtis, Fletcher and Santa Lucea

Three unguarded beaches south of Stuart Beach on MacArthur Boulevard. Curtis is a lot and a dune walkover. Fletcher is quiet with restrooms, half a mile south. Santa Lucea is a five-acre natural area with plenty of parking, a wheelchair-accessible boardwalk and a leashed-dog welcome, and it connects to the Clifton Perry Beach preserve that runs from the lagoon to the ocean with a kayak launch.

Chastain Beach and the Stuart Rocks

The surf beach. Chastain sits between the House of Refuge and Bathtub, seasonally guarded, with restrooms, showers and a boardwalk from the lot. The Stuart Rocks reef break near the House of Refuge is a limestone reef that works best on a northeast swell at low incoming tide, and it's for intermediate and advanced surfers who own booties, because the rock and the urchins are real.

Ross Witham Beach and the House of Refuge

The most photographed spot on the Treasure Coast. Gilbert's Bar House of Refuge was built in 1876 to shelter shipwrecked sailors, it's the oldest building in Martin County and the last of the ten refuge houses still standing, and it turns 150 this year after a full restoration finished in 2025. The beach below it is all Anastasia limestone and tide pools, the Georges Valentine wreck lies a hundred yards offshore for snorkelers and divers, and leashed dogs are fine. Small lot, so come early or walk from Chastain.

Bathtub Reef Beach

The beach every family in Stuart grew up on. A worm-rock reef a short swim off the sand breaks the waves, so at low tide in summer it's a warm, calm pool you can wade with a toddler and a mask, with fish on the reef. Lifeguards, about 100 free spaces, restrooms. The honest part: it's at the mercy of the ocean. The county closed it for a year and a half, reopened it in January 2025 with a $5.4 million buried seawall and a raised road, and the king tides that fall exposed the wall again and left a steep drop to the sand. It stayed open, and sand work waits for turtle season to end each year. Check the county's page before you drive out. The gate to Sailfish Point is at the end of the same road.

Hobe Sound Beach

At the end of Bridge Road, the county beach for Hobe Sound and Jupiter Island: lifeguards, free parking that fills, restrooms, showers, pavilions and a reef and sandbar that make for easy snorkeling on calm days. When the lot is full, the refuge lot on North Beach Road is the overflow. Hobe Sound village and the Loblolly, Medalist Village and Arbors neighborhoods are the ones that use it daily.

Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge

Three and a half miles of Atlantic beach with nothing on it, the largest undeveloped stretch left in southeast Florida. Five dollars a car, sunrise to sunset, no lifeguard, no dogs on the sand, a steep drop-off close to shore, and in June and July the refuge runs guided nighttime turtle walks where you can watch a loggerhead nest. It's the beach you take people to when you want them to understand why you moved here.

Blowing Rocks Preserve

At the south end of Jupiter Island, a Nature Conservancy preserve with the largest outcrop of Anastasia limestone on the East Coast. At high tide in a rough winter sea the surf blasts through the rock and throws spray 50 feet in the air, and at low tide you can walk the shelf and look into the pools. Open 9 to 4:30, free with a suggested $2 donation, restrooms, a small lot that's full by late morning, no pets, and it closes for storms, so check their page. The overflow is Coral Cove Park just over the Palm Beach County line, another rocky snorkeling beach.

Just over the line

Hobe Sound buyers use Jupiter's beaches as much as Martin County's. Jupiter Beach Park and DuBois Park sit on either side of the Jupiter Inlet under the 1860 lighthouse, with lifeguards, a protected snorkeling lagoon for small kids, and free parking. Jupiter's dog beach runs two and a half miles off-leash between the marked posts south of the inlet. And the 990-foot Juno Beach Pier, run by the Loggerhead Marinelife Center, is being refurbished in stages through the end of 2026. Palm Beach County talked about charging for parking at all of these in 2026 and backed off, so for now they're free too.

Picking a beach, and a house behind it

If you want a beach you can walk to with a cooler and a toddler, look at Vero's Central Beach, South Beach and the Moorings, the Fort Pierce beaches south of the inlet, the Indian River Plantation area behind Stuart Beach, or the Bathtub and Sailfish Point end of Hutchinson Island. If you want the beach mostly to yourself, the north end of Indian River County, the south half of St. Lucie's Hutchinson Island and the refuge at Hobe Sound are where the lots stay small. If you surf, you're picking between Sebastian, Tracking Station, Fort Pierce Inlet and Chastain, and the housing near each is very different in price. If you have a dog, Martin County is the easy answer, Walton Rocks is the fun one, and Vero is the one where you'll be driving to Indian River Shores.

Every one of these beaches has a condo or a neighborhood within a mile of it, from a $300,000 Hutchinson Island condo to a Jupiter Island estate, and I've written guides on most of the gated ones in the gated communities guide. Tell me which beach you fell for and I'll show you what's behind it.

Questions people ask about Treasure Coast beaches

What is the best beach on the Treasure Coast?

It depends on what you want. Bathtub Reef in Stuart is the family favorite for its calm, reef-protected water at low tide. Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge has three and a half miles of undeveloped sand. Sebastian Inlet is the surf beach. Pepper Park in Fort Pierce is the snorkeling beach. Stuart Beach and Vero's Humiston and South Beach are the full-service town beaches with lifeguards and food nearby.

Are Treasure Coast beaches free?

Almost all of them. Martin County, St. Lucie County and Indian River County beach parks have free parking. The exceptions are the state parks (Sebastian Inlet $8, Fort Pierce Inlet $6, Avalon $2) and the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge ($5). Fort Pierce has been moving toward paid parking at its inlet-side lots.

Which Treasure Coast beaches allow dogs?

Walton Rocks on South Hutchinson Island is the only off-leash dog beach. Martin County allows leashed dogs on all of its beaches outside the guarded swim areas during lifeguard hours. Indian River Shores allows leashed dogs on its beach. Indian River County parks, Vero Beach's town beaches, the state parks, the wildlife refuges and Blowing Rocks do not allow dogs on the sand.

Which beaches have lifeguards?

In Indian River County: Golden Sands, Wabasso, Tracking Station, Jaycee, Humiston, South Beach and Round Island. In St. Lucie County: Pepper Park and Waveland. In Martin County: Jensen Beach, Stuart Beach, Bathtub Reef and Hobe Sound Beach. Hours are roughly 9 or 10 in the morning to about 4:45, weather permitting.

Is Bathtub Reef Beach open?

It reopened in January 2025 after an 18-month closure and a $5.4 million seawall project, and it stayed open through the fall 2025 king tides that exposed the wall and steepened the access to the sand. Conditions change with every storm, so check Martin County's Bathtub Beach page before you go.

Talk with William. William lives on the Treasure Coast and can show you the homes and condos behind any beach on this list, from Vero Beach to Hobe Sound, and tell you which ones you can walk to the sand from. Call or text (772) 800-2274 or send a message.

General information. Beach conditions, lifeguard schedules, fees, dog rules and access can change with storms and county decisions; confirm with the county or park before you go. William Merchant, REALTOR®, RE/MAX Gold. Each RE/MAX office is independently owned and operated.

Sources

William Merchant