Winter Walk at Amelia Island

Located only 29 miles from Jacksonville and minutes south of Georgia, Amelia Island offers loads of ocean-front hotel rooms, single family homes and condominiums for rent, with easy access to 13 miles of pristine coastline. After shopping at Amelia Island Plantation, playing 18 holes on a seaside course, or taking a Segway tour throughout the neighborhood, the ocean beckons.

On one early December morning last year, a fireball sun cast a rosy glow on my wall as purple clouds surrendered to pale blue, and glittered across the calm ocean. A couple hours later, I walked barefoot through gentle waves, as my toes squished through liquid sand and dodged the pointed edges of a million shells strewn along the high tide line. By evening, I'd returned to a Midwestern ice storm.