Twenty-one days from now the toll booths quit.

That is the whole news. St. Johns County charges you to drive onto the sand from March 1 through Sept. 30. From Oct. 1 through Feb. 28, the county’s own page says passes are not required. You drive on. Nobody takes your money.

So if you have been paying ten bucks a pop all summer, you have three more weekends of that and then it is over until spring.

What it costs until then

Daily is $10 whether you live here or not. That one surprises people. There is no local discount on a day pass.

The discounts live on the annual pass:

  • County resident annual: $50. Five days of driving and it has paid for itself.
  • Non-resident annual: $100.
  • ADA-accessible annual: $40, daily $5, with a valid placard.
  • Active-duty military daily: $5 with a valid ID.
  • Disabled veterans: one free annual pass a year, with VA documentation showing service-connected status.

Resident rate needs a photo ID with a county address, or proof you paid property tax here. All sales final, no refunds, and if you lose the pass you buy another one. A pass that got chewed up gets replaced free.

Worth doing the math before Oct. 1: if you are going to drive on the beach even six times next spring and summer, the $50 resident annual beats paying $10 at the booth.

Where you actually get on

Eight ramps, about twelve miles of driveable beach:

Vilano Beach Ramp on Vilano Road. Porpoise Point Ramp on Porpoise Point Drive. A Street Ramp in St. Augustine Beach. Ocean Trace Road. Dondanville Road. Matanzas Avenue. Mary Street, which the county lists at 5705 Gloria Ave. Crescent Beach Ramp on Cubbedge Road.

The gate rules are the thing that strands people.

A Street closes at 5 p.m. every night, year round. That ramp belongs to the City of St. Augustine Beach, not the county, so the county’s hours do not apply to it and the county’s phone number will not help you. Theirs is 904-471-2122.

County gates close at 7:30 p.m. and reopen at 8 a.m. every day during sea turtle nesting season, which runs May 1 through Oct. 31. So for the rest of this month and all of October, 7:30 is your hard out. On Nov. 1 the county gates start staying open overnight through April 30, weather permitting.

And ramps close on their own. Weather, sand and tide can shut a ramp or drop it to four-wheel drive only, and the county does not publish that on a schedule. It posts it to its social accounts and the SJC Connect app as it happens. Check before you load the car.

If you are not driving

There is real parking. Mickler’s Landing has 202 spaces and seven ADA, with restrooms, showers, changing rooms and a Mobi-Mat, though you still cross about thirty feet of soft sand at the end of it. The Guana accesses run about 60 spaces at the southern dirt lot, 94 at the ADA southern access, 80 at the middle and 70 at the north. All four of those mean crossing Coastal Highway on foot, so use the crosswalks. South Ponte Vedra Recreation Area has 24.

Two things that are closed

The pier is out. The St. Johns County Ocean and Fishing Pier closed May 13 for piling repairs and the county expects it back at the end of November. While it is closed, the northern St. Augustine Beach access point is closed too, so everybody funnels through the south entrance. Surfers and swimmers are asked to stay 500 feet off the pier while the work is going on. The gift shop is open, which is a very funny sentence to have to write.

Escambia Street in Butler Beach lost its walkover on June 1 while the county replaces the Mobi-Mat with a permanent structure.

Forty-two miles of coastline, twelve of them driveable, free in three weeks.