First Landing State Park Beach
Virginia Beach, VA
First Landing State Park protects a mile and a half of Chesapeake Bay shoreline inside the middle of Virginia Beach, reachable by four boardwalks that cross the dunes from the main lot near the Chesapeake Bay Center. It's Virginia's most visited state park, but the bay side stays noticeably calmer and less crowded than the oceanfront a few miles south.
A calm bay beach hidden inside a heavily wooded state park, though the unguarded water and a lot shared with the whole park rather than the beach alone means summer weekends fill fast.
How we score beachesSkip the busy main bathhouse boardwalk and use one of the campground crossovers instead. They lead to the same beach with a fraction of the day tripper traffic.
A state park parking fee applies at the main entrance, payable at the gate. The main lot fills by late morning on summer weekends.
Boardwalks cross the dunes from the main lot and campground to the sand; the walk from the main lot runs a few hundred feet on a raised, flat surface.
There are no lifeguards here, and swimmers go in at their own risk, so many locals treat this as more of a shell hunting and sunset beach than a swim spot. Water reaches the mid to upper 70s by August, same as the rest of the bay.
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