Fort De Soto Park: East Beach, Dog Beach, Gulf Pier Beach, and North Beach

Fort De Soto Park is located just south of Tampa, Florida and has 4 amazing beaches.

From East Beach you have a view of Tampa Bay.

Dog Beach allows you to bring your dog to hang out on the beach or at the dog park.

The beach at the Gulf Pier overlooks the Gulf of Mexico. This is also where the old historic Fort De Soto Fort is located.

Lastly, you have North Beach. This was our favorite of all the beaches for the white sand and clear water.

When you arrive at the entrance, you will pay a $5 parking fee. This is what the entrance looks like:

As you start to drive in, you will see a large American Flag.

You will see a sign that shows you which way to turn to different beaches.

We turned left to go to East Beach first.

As you turn into the parking lot for East Beach, you will follow the paved trail to the beach.

As you are walking to the beach, you will see that they have pavilions, picnic tables, BBQ Pits, and bathrooms.

There are no pets allowed on East Beach.

As you walk out onto East Beach, you have a beautiful view of Tampa Bay and the Skyway Bridge.

After hanging out at East Beach, we headed over to Dog Beach.

Dog Beach normally has a 500 foot Bay Pier by it, but they had it closed to rebuild it while we were there.

Dog Beach also has a dog park that is fenced in to let your dogs run and play.

There are signs along the way to guide you to Dog Beach.

As we walked out onto Dog Beach, we could see the new pier being constructed.

These are the views of Dog Beach:

After spending some time at Dog Beach, we headed over to the Gulf Pier, which has a beach and the old historic fort.

We parked by the pier so we could check that out first.

You can see the Gulf Pier store that sells ice, sandwiches, sun block, and frozen bait.

We walked out onto the 1,000 foot pier. Dogs are not allowed on the pier.

From the pier you have this view of the beach.

We walked to the end of the pier. From the end, you can see Egmont Key in the distance.

After checking out the pier, we decided to go check out the beach and get in the water.

The sand was really soft and the water was warm.

After hanging out at the beach, we got in our car and drove to the other side of the parking lot to explore the old historic Fort De Soto

You can walk right to the fort to explore or you can take a trail that goes above the fort and has amazing views of the Gulf of Mexico. 

We walked this trail first and then explored the fort.

After walking the trail above the fort, we saw the sign pointing to the right to explore the old fort.

We found this sign that explained the history of Fort De Soto.

After exploring the old fort, we headed to North Beach.

North Beach has a really big parking lot, pavilions, picnic tables, and bbq areas.

As you walk out to the beach, there are shallow pools of water that you walk through to get there. No dogs are allowed on North Beach.

We laid out our beach towels and walked north to the end of the beach. This is what it looks like:

The beach curves around into a bay. At the end of the beach, the water is really shallow. This is a view from the shallow water looking at the end of the beach.

Then we started walking back. We saw a kite surfer along the way.

Overall, we loved exploring the beaches at Fort De Soto Park. We would highly recommend visiting these beaches and we can't wait to go back.

Fort De Soto Park Map

3500 Pinellas Bayway South, Tierra Verde, FL 33715:

(Click on the map above to go to a Google Maps larger view.)

Fort De Soto Park cost us $5 for parking.

Total: $5 for entry

These are the checklist items I recommend:

• Bring a hat to keep the sun off of your face.
• Sunscreen and beach towel.
•  Bring water and food.
• Bring money for entry and snacks.