About Navarre Surf Travel
Navarre Beach:
Want to get brain-finned by a 12-year-old? Navarre Beach Park is the place to be. As the Panhandle’s premier training ground for the next crop of hungry surfers, this brand-new facility is Grand Central Station for grommets. Sitting just east of the Pier, with ample parking, it can be reached by heading west on Highway 98 from Fort Walton Beach, then left over the bridge at Navarre. The parking lot is at the end of the bridge road. From Pensacola, take the beach road east until it dead-ends into the park and pier parking lot. It’s a mushy, midbreak, splitting up the crowd factor between the park and the pier. On a medium-size east swell, the wave is a fun, long beachbreak, but watch your head for flying young ‘uns.
Navarre Pier:
Navarre is a small resort community located about 30 minutes east of Pensacola Beach along Beach Road 399. It may be accessed by the beach road or by taking Highway 98 east from Pensacola or west from Fort Walton Beach. Hurricane Opal leveled the town in 1995 — a direct hit — and the subsequent deluge of federal money started a building boom. The best thing about the storm is that Navarre got a brand-new pier. Add the debris of the old pier, and the setup is perfect for great waves, at least until the next hurricane blows it down again.
Navarre Pier has been a consistently good spot for years, and is one of the hottest pier breaks on the Gulf Coast. The locals are pretty mellow, and it’s rarely crowded, because the drive is 35 minutes from both Pensacola and Fort Walton. In fact, this is the spot to which Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach surfers go when they want to escape the neighborhood pack. The pier can be reached by heading west on Highway 98 from Fort Walton Beach, then going left over the bridge at Navarre. The parking lot is at the end of the bridge road. From Pensacola, take the beach road east until it almost dead-ends at the pier lot. Both sides break on the inside, depending on swell size and direction.