Visit “The World’s Smallest Police Station”
The subject of numerous magazine and newspaper articles over the years, the Carrabelle Police Department actually uses an old phone booth as a police station. According to the Guinness Book of Records it is the smallest in the world. The original wooden station is on display at the offices of the Carrabelle Chamber of Commerce. If by chance you need police assistance, just use the phone is there isn't a policeman present.

Visit the Crooked River Lighthouse
Just past Carrabelle Beach on the way to Eastpoint, you will find the Crooked River Lighthouse.  The Crooked River Lighthouse's 103-foot tall tower was built in 1893 to replace a Dog Island Light that had been destroyed (along with the Cape San Blas Light and Cape St. George Light) by a hurricane in 1875.

Dog Island is a barrier island off the Franklin County (Carrabelle) coast that can only be reached by boat. The Crooked River Lighthouse is located just a couple miles west of the popular Carrabelle Beach wayside park between Eastpoint  and Carrabelle. This new mainland site allowed the Crooked River Light to be used as a guidance system for the channel west of Dog Island.

The lighthouse was first lit in October 1895. The Crooked River Lighthouse was automated and in '52 became unmanned. Surrounding dwellings were soon removed from the site.
In the 1990's the City of Carrabelle inherited the lighthouse (from the Coast Guard) and it, in turn, leased it to the Carrabelle Lighthouse Association for $1 a year for the next 99 years. Membership in the Association continues to grow and members continue their preservation efforts. Eventually they would like to make the Crooked River Lighthouse a museum and ultimate tourist attraction. For additional information contact the Carrabelle Lighthouse Association, P.O. Box 373, Carrabelle, FL 32322

Carrabelle Beach
Carrabelle Beach is a delightful, sugar sand beach on the bay front just east of downtown Carrabelle. There are restrooms, covered picnic tables, and miles of beach to walk.   

Dog Island
Dog Island is the least accessible inhabited island in the chain of barrier islands that make up the Apalachicola Bay. There is no bridge so the only means of transportation available are boat and airplane. There is a grass landing strip on the island. If you are a nature type person, a day trip to Dog Island is well worth the hassle. Large portions of the island are held in trust by the Nature Conservancy, which means that the barrier island ecology is largely intact. There are archeological artifacts that prove Dog Island has been inhabited for more than two thousand years.

St. George Island
If the trip to Dog Island is a bit daunting, and the residents like it that way, a day trip to the Julian Bruce State Park on St. George Island is in your future. Here you will find eleven miles of barrier island largely preserved in the same condition as Dog Island. There are two pavilions with showers and picnic facilities, but there are also nature trails that you can walk that show the natural condition of barrier islands. If you are a beach walker, you can head east from the second pavilion and walk for miles on some days and never see another human being.

Wakulla Springs
For a day trip during your visit you can't beat Wakulla Springs State Park. Once the private home of Edward Ball of DuPont and St. Joe Paper fame, the park features the head of the Wakulla River as it gushes up from a hole in the ground. Nobody had yet determined where the waters from this massive spring emanate, but it is a steady flow of billions of gallons of water that creates a river instantly. Glass bottom and jungle boat tours are available. There is a snack bar and a restaurant and a swimming beach and diving tower with lifeguards on duty.

Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory
At Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Panacea, just thirty minutes drive from Carrabelle, you begin to get a better sense of what's really there. On a quiet back street between the highway and the bay they house a collection of sea water tanks and aquariums. Water bubbles and flows in a swirl that sustains unique collections of the bizarre and the beautiful. Unlike most big public aquariums that emphasize porpoises and big fishes, they focus on seahorses and hermit crabs, emerald eyed spiny box fish, electric rays and red and white spotted calico crabs - all the endless living treasure of north Florida's still shining coast. Kids love it.