Traveling to monitor loggerhead turtle nests, work with researchers to catch and mark bats, watch for more than 300 bird species, and sail on riverways with healthy populations of river otters, alligators, and occasional flamingos might suggest going to Costa Rica, Panama, or Colombia. But in central Georgia’s Golden Isles, Little St. Simons Island offers a rare coastal wilderness immersion within domestic borders.

“There aren’t a lot of places in mainland America where you can just have a real adventure,” says Jamie Pazur, the general manager of the largely undeveloped island where guests overnight in a 1917 hunting lodge or one of five cozy cabins amid 11,000 acres of wilderness.

Located in the 135-square-mile delta of the Altamaha River where it meets the ocean—among the most productive estuaries on the Atlantic coast—the barrier island exists to get guests into nature. It uses its proceeds to fund the island-based Center for Coastal Conservation, earning it a spot on Travel + Leisure’s 2025 Global Vision Awards list for its work in protecting the habitat for a variety of flora and fauna.

“Our guests are contributing to conservation when they come stay here,” says Scott Coleman, the island’s ecological manager who directs the Center for Coastal Conservation, adding that this is true even if visitors prefer to simply read under a live oak tree rather than engage in programming.

But it’s the island’s naturalist-led activities that make it an educational adventure. Much like a safari camp, guests have the choice of morning and afternoon excursions such as shell walks on seven miles of undisturbed beaches, surf fishing for ocean species, kayaking tidal rivers in search of dolphins, birding from a pontoon boat in the marsh, hiking some of the 26 miles of trails, and taking a wildlife-watching trip in the back of an open pickup truck.

At night, after a social hour by the pool or an oyster roast, a naturalist or researcher might give a talk on oystercatcher breeding on the island, the introduction of armadillos, or the success of its 40-year program to protect sea turtles, resulting in a growth rate among loggerheads of three percent a year.

Rustic accommodations for a maximum of 32 guests—available for full-island buyouts—add to the destinations’s throwback charm, with rockers on the porches and cabins with knotty-pine interiors. Marsh views and the shade of live oaks maintain the connection to nature and stays include daily Lowcountry meals carefully sourced from local farmers or the on-site garden. 

For those who want to avoid group excursions, Little St. Simons encourages guests to take a bike to an empty beach or line up their own kayak outing complete with a packed picnic lunch.

Pazur adds, “When our guests come here, we feed them well, we give them comfortable lodging, and then we give them nothing to worry about so they can spend as much time as possible outside the main compound where all the buildings are, enjoying the island and really getting to experience nature.”