Crystal Beach

We had a great day at Crystal Beach! Swimming, beach combing, sunbathing, people watching, floating on the waves, birdwatching and just chilling. You can drive and park right on the beach if you get a $ 10 Bolivar beaches pass and the ferry ride to and from the peninsula is great — Pelicans, Dolphins, seagulls, huge tanker ship, cruise ship, kayaked and more. Definitely recommend this day trip!

It might be a trek to get there, but it’s a nice clean beach. There weren’t too many people and those who were there were pleasant. There were several people driving up and down the beach, but never bothered us. Great place to find seashells and even hermit crabs… don’t take them home though. They will not survive. :) I enjoyed it much more than Stewarts Beach.

Great fun, but so sad at the amount of trash littering the beach. Everywhere you look there is trash. I don’t know how the city can do a better job enforcing pick up, but it made the whole area just feel dirty.

Holy Hell you can drive on the beach!
When most Louisiana residents think of a beach vacation, they think of heading east. This year I eschewed tradition and headed west to Crystal Beach.
Crystal Beach reminds me of Grand Isle. Instead of massive condos, blocking the view, the community of made of up various developments containing beach houses. The houses range from pretty standard camps to multi-​million dollar mansions. All are raised, and most are relatively new thanks to the devastation by Hurricane Ike in 2008.
The Beach
The actual beach area is not particularly clean. When we first arrived the beach and several feet of the water was coated in Sargassum Weed. This super thick seaweed was ugly and difficult to walk through. After a few days the county launched a massive cleanup effort with front end loaders to clean the beach. Once that was done, we still had to navigate the seaweed in the water, but the beach itself was clear.
The most interesting feature of this beach, at least for me, was that you could drive and park on the beach. The beach was basically a sand highway where you could drive back and forth from your beach house or just cruise and enjoy the sun. Cruising the beach was pretty easy in a four wheel drive vehicle, but I saw everything from Corvettes to Honda Accords out there. If you stick to the heavily traveled areas you will be fine, but I did see a few stuck vehicles that had tried to venture out into the loose sand. While cruising was free, parking required a $ 10 beach parking permit that could be purchased at the local grocery store. There was a woman who patrolled the beach checking for permits, but she would sell scofflaws a permit on the spot rather than issue any violation.
Since driving on the beach was a relatively new concept for me, I did it a lot. So much in fact that I burned three entire tanks of fuel cruising back and forth.
The People
Families — If you have kids, find a spot near other families.
Party Animals — You will see lots of massive trucks and hard partying youngsters. I feel old even typing that. The later it gets the more of a party atmosphere you will find.
Weirdos — There were a few very strange people camping out on the beach over the weekend. I passed one guy who was passed out face down in the sand. I was about to call the cops thinking he was dead, but he moved a little so I just kept on driving.
Fishermen — At night especially this beach becomes a fisherman’s paradise. Guys with serious shore fishing set ups come out and fish all night.
In summary, I’ve been to better beaches, but Crystal Beach is A-​OK.

My brother in law wanted to try camping on the beach. We read that Crystal Beach is the place for that, however, Crystal Beach itself was very crowded. We just drove down the beach until we found a better spot and LOVED it! The ocean breeze was blowing, which meant hardly any mosquitos, the moon was full. We were all surprised at how perfect it was! We’ll definitely be doing this again.
We did camp next to another set of campers so we wouldn’t be all alone on the beach and we created a parameter around our campsite with our cars for protections from crazy drivers, although I don’t think anyone came down that way after dark except a few golf carts from the beach houses. Porta Potties are more scarce when you get further from Crystal Beach, but the gas stations on the 87 are fine with people using their restrooms and have porta potties outside. There are port a potties on some of the roads headed out to the beach.
P. S. Definitely take the ferry out to Bolivar Peninsula. There are dolphins having a blast out there right now. Also, DO bring insect repellent. If the breeze stops, they come out in swarms.

«Does Nature supplement what man advanced? Or does she complete what he began?»
Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse.
This is a unique peninsula and beach. That is a natural bird habitat, but also turned into mans play thing. You can get a permit to drive, park, and camp on the beach. Or, like my family, get a house close to the beach and walk back and forth. My Dad describes the beach as a part Carnival with ice cream trucks and souvenir stands. Part Mad Max with pick ups, ATV’s, and any other vehicle you can imagine driving up and down. At night there were people with airport landing lights attached to their ATV. Weekends can be crazy, but during the week really low key.
All fine and good. Personally, I think they are trying to hard. All I need is a beach chair, bocci ball set, book, a cooler of beer, and my dog. Though, that is the beauty of the beach. Everyone can do their own thing.
The one big knock I have here is that the beach is just dirty. I can’t believe people don’t take better care here. At times it seemed everywhere you step is a beer can, kids juice box, even a week old bag of spoiled chicken that someone never got around to use, I assume for crab hunting. Come on people, ever heard of pack in, pack out? This is a unique beach, and an experience. One that I really enjoyed. Clean up the garbage and this is an easy 4 star. Still, a place I am looking forward to visiting again.

I wish I could give this place 3.5 stars! I enjoyed it better than Seawall Beach on mainland Galveston!
The beach was pretty crowded for a Good Friday! You can drive on the beach with a permit. There was plenty of people enjoying the beach and the water on this beautiful day. There was a truck driving up and down with flags on it and music going selling stuff. Not sure what because we just drove down this part of the beach and opted for the more secluded areas to hang out farther down the beach!
This looks like it would be an area that is popular with teenagers and the young single college crowd in the summer but, I did see families out there this weekend!
I think I will stick to the more secluded areas down a ways! The beach itself is beautiful!!!

Decent beach in Galveston. It is across the main island so is pretty secluded which is awesome if you are not wanting to be around large crowds.
Aside from that. Typical Galveston beach with mediocre sand and water quality

The beach was packed and there was trash everywhere. At one time I’m sure this beach earned the name Crystal but it wasn’t apparent on the day of our visit. It was so dirty that we didn’t want to get out of the car. Bottles, food and trash littered the entire area. It was very disappointing.

By far, my fav TX beach & best rental property options. HOWEVER this weekend is the weekend of the GD mosquito & it’s BAD!!! (7÷20÷2012)
Bring Off no matter what time of year you come, just to be safe. Bring Citronella too. Besides that tho, CB is a great place for the family. Its not rowdy and crazy like some of the other beaches. Be ready to wait at the Ferry too. Bring your tents, and coolers, and have a blast!