Helicopter from Miami to Jacksonville

The ocean side is what most parties come for. More than twenty two miles of Atlantic beach run along the eastern edge of the city, and Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach sit end to end along it without much to mark where one stops. The sand is wide and hard packed rather than soft, which is why people cycle and walk on it here and sunbathe on it further south. It is also public for almost its whole length, so an afternoon on it needs nothing booked in advance. A beach picnic works on this coast the same way it works on a sandbar. Say which end of the beach the party wants and the car that meets you is set to the right one.

The river is the reason the city is where it is. The St. Johns runs about 310 miles and is the longest river in Florida, and it is one of the few large rivers in the country that flows north, which is why the current under the downtown bridges runs the opposite way to what visitors expect. Downtown sits on both banks, and the walkable part of it follows the water rather than the streets behind. From the air the bends read as clearly as the grid does, and the bridges are the landmarks you count on the way in. A table by the water in the evening is the usual shape of a night here. Send it with the dates and the ground transport is planned around the booking rather than after it.

Ponte Vedra Beach sits about seventeen miles south of the centre, and for a fair number of parties it is the whole reason the flight exists. TPC Sawgrass is there, and its seventeenth is the island green: a par three of 137 yards with water on every side of it. The PLAYERS has been held on that course since 1982. That matters for a day here in one specific way. The good tee times go weeks before the aircraft does, so the golf sets the hours and the flight is planned around it rather than the other way round. Clubs travel with you, within what the aircraft takes on the day. Say how many bags are coming with the dates and it is answered in the baggage guidance.

Amelia Island is the top corner of the state, about twenty six miles north of the centre and thirteen miles of barrier island end to end. Fernandina Beach sits on it, and its historic district runs more than fifty blocks with over four hundred buildings on the National Register. It is the one destination on this list that rewards an overnight more than an afternoon. A party that lands in the morning and flies home the next day gets a town, a beach and a dinner rather than a walk and a drive back. Whether it is a day or a night changes the return hour and not the price. Say which of the two you want at the enquiry and the aircraft is held that way.

About thirty seven miles south of the centre, down the same shore the flight comes up. St. Augustine was founded in 1565 and is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement founded by Europeans anywhere in the United States, which is a sentence the town spends most of the year proving. The old quarter is small enough to walk end to end, the fort sits on the water, and the whole thing reads from the air as a single tight block against a much emptier coast. Parties who want history rather than beach come here and treat the sand as the second half of the day. It pairs naturally with the beaches above, which is why a Jacksonville day trip built around both is the most common shape we are asked for on this route.

Between the city and the ocean sits the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve: about 46,000 acres of salt marsh, dune and hardwood held by the National Park Service, with Fort Caroline and the Kingsley Plantation inside it. On the ground it is a set of trails and landings. From a few hundred feet it is the part of the approach that reads best, because the creeks through the marsh make a pattern you cannot see from any road and the colour changes with the tide rather than with the season. If the flight itself is the point rather than the far end, a scenic flight stays over this stretch instead of pressing on.

Mayport sits about fifteen miles from the centre where the St. Johns meets the Atlantic, and it is a working river mouth rather than a resort. The boats go out of there, the jetties are the landmark, and the fish are the reason a certain kind of party books this route at all. Inshore around the marsh creeks and offshore past the jetties are two different days and two different boats, and which one is available depends on the month more than on the week. Say which of the two you want with the dates. A fishing day by air is arranged with the flight, and flats access is the shallower version of the same morning.

Helicopter rides Miami Jacksonville also work as the first leg rather than the whole trip. The aircraft is yours for the day, so the coast between the two ends is a list of stops rather than a line you have to fly in one go. The obvious ones going back south are Daytona Beach, Melbourne, Vero Beach and Stuart, each of them roughly an hour of coastline apart from the next. The full city guide sits on the Jacksonville destination page, the packaged version is the Jacksonville getaway day trip, freight up the same line runs as island logistics and the rest of the coast is on the Florida destinations page.