First Landing State Park
Virginia State Park; One Of The Six Original 1936 Parks, Built By The Civilian Conservation Corps And Known As Seashore State Park Until 1997; A National Natural Landmark · Virginia Beach, Virginia
Two and a half thousand acres of cypress swamp, maritime forest and Chesapeake Bay shoreline sitting inside the city limits of Virginia Beach, and almost certainly the busiest state park in Virginia. It is named for what happened here: the Jamestown colonists made their first landfall at Cape Henry in April 1607, put up a cross, and sailed on up the bay to found the settlement that became Virginia. What survives is stranger than the history. The Bald Cypress Trail runs on boardwalk through blackwater swamp hung with Spanish moss - the northernmost place on the continent where Spanish moss grows naturally - and the effect is pure Deep South, fifteen minutes from an oceanfront resort strip. The park sits on a system of ancient dunes, so the trails climb and fall through completely different habitats within a mile: swamp, then dry sandy pine ridge, then salt marsh, then a mile and a quarter of bay beach. There are twenty miles of trail, a campground, cabins on the bay side and a visitor centre, and on a summer weekend all of it is full.
2500 Shore Drive, Virginia Beach, Virginia, 23451, United States
Park open daily, generally 8 AM to dusk with seasonal variation. Chesapeake Bay Center keeps shorter hours and is reduced in winter. Camping and cabins by reservation, booked far ahead for summer. Parking fee per vehicle, higher in peak summer. Car parks fill by mid-morning on summer weekends. Closures for hurricanes and nor'easters, roughly August to October.
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