Taste
The Tybee Pier reaches 700 feet into the Atlantic at the south end of the island, and it never closes. It's the island's living room: anglers at dawn, families at noon, and everyone again at sunset when the pavilion lights come on.
Georgia does not require a saltwater license to fish from a public pier, so you can walk on with a rod and a bucket of shrimp. Whiting and croaker bite most of the year, flounder work the pilings on a moving tide, and Spanish mackerel show up chasing bait in late summer. Dawn and the two hours either side of high tide are the productive windows.
Walk back off the pier and you're on Tybrisa, the island's short strip of seafood joints. Wild Georgia shrimp is the thing to order — peel-and-eat by the pound, fried in a basket, or dropped into a low-country boil with corn, red potatoes and smoked sausage. Crab stew, hushpuppies and a cold beer at a picnic table with sand still on your feet is the correct Tybee dinner.
The covered pavilion hosts free summer concerts, the Fourth of July fireworks launch straight off the pier deck, and the south-end beach beside it is the widest, most lifeguarded stretch on the island. Public restrooms, showers and the biggest paid lot are all within a block.
Parking on the south end fills by mid-morning on summer weekends — use the free island shuttle from the lighthouse lots instead. Alcohol and glass are not allowed on the pier or the sand, and the deck gets slick after a squall, so watch your footing with a full cooler.