Start near: Pensacola (starts here) · Mobile (about 45 min to Dauphin Island)
Dauphin Island to Perdido Key by the Mobile Bay ferry
Alabama's Coastal Connection is a ~95-mile back-roads route from Dauphin Island to Pensacola on AL 193, Mobile Bay Ferry, AL 180, AL 182 and FL 292, driven in 1–2 days, that stays off I-10 through the Gulf Coast.
The federal scenic byway that loops Mobile Bay's mouth: the Dauphin Island bridge to Fort Gaines and the sanctuary where the spring migrants land first, the forty-minute ferry across the shipping channel to Fort Morgan, where 'damn the torpedoes' happened offshore, the peninsula past Bon Secour's shrimp docks, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach to the Flora-Bama line, and Perdido Key into Pensacola. Alabama has 32 miles of Gulf shore and this is all of it.
📍 Alabama Coastal Birding Trail signs at every pull-off; Civil War Trails markers at both forts.
The west end's empty beach to the east end's fort, sea lab and bird sanctuary, on an island the hurricanes keep redrawing.
164 acres of maritime forest at the island's east end, the first landfall for trans-Gulf migrants each April; a fallout day after a north wind is the birding event of the coast.
The 1821 fort on the Battle of Mobile Bay's west flank (August 1864), with its original cannons and blacksmith shop; Farragut's fleet ran past it under fire.
A 1,500-year-old oyster-shell midden the size of a city block under live oaks, with a birding boardwalk.
Forty minutes across the channel's mouth with the gas rigs and the shipping lane for company, to the star fort on the far point.
Forty minutes across the channel's mouth; dolphins ride the wake and the rigs stand in a row. Sails about every 90 minutes, weather and season permitting.
The star fort (1834) where Farragut's 'Damn the torpedoes' happened offshore on August 5, 1864; the Confederates held out two more weeks. Walk the ramparts and casemates; the museum has the Tecumseh's story.
AL 180 down the peninsula between the Gulf and Bon Secour Bay, the refuge, the shrimp docks, Gulf State Park and the charter harbor at Orange Beach.
'Safe harbor' in French: 7,000 acres of dune, lagoon and pine for the Alabama beach mouse and the migrants; the Pine Beach Trail walks to an empty Gulf beach in two miles.
Up the bay side: Billy's Seafood and the fleet that lands the shrimp the whole coast eats; buy off the boat.
Three miles of beach, a 1,540-foot pier, 28 miles of paved trails through the back-bay forest, and a lodge rebuilt after the 2004 hurricane as a model of how to do it.
The Gulf's largest charter fleet, Cotton Bayou for a quiet beach, and the Perdido Pass bridge at sunset.
Over Perdido Pass to the roadhouse on the state line, Perdido Key's national-seashore beach, Big Lagoon, and Spain's first colony at the end of the byway.
The roadhouse on the state line since 1964, rebuilt around whatever the last hurricane left: four stages, the Mullet Toss in April, and a Sunday church service on the beach side.
Gulf Islands National Seashore's Perdido Key unit: seven miles of undeveloped beach reachable on foot past the end of the road.
A 1930s CCC park on the lagoon between the key and the mainland, with an observation tower over the whole system.
Spain's first colony (1559) ends the byway; the Blue Angels' home museum at NAS Pensacola is free and the best aviation museum in the South.
Alabama's Coastal Connection is about 95 miles and takes 1–2 days at a back-roads pace.
It runs from Dauphin Island to Pensacola.
It follows AL 193, Mobile Bay Ferry, AL 180, AL 182 and FL 292.
It avoids I-10, using AL 193, Mobile Bay Ferry, AL 180, AL 182 and FL 292 instead.
13 stops are mapped, including Audubon Bird Sanctuary, Fort Gaines, Indian Shell Mound Park, Mobile Bay Ferry and Fort Morgan.
Gulf Shores & the Forts (2 days).
The atlas’s seasonal note for this route: “The ferry runs weather permitting and skips some winter months; check the schedule the morning of and arrive twenty minutes early.”
Gulf Shores & the Forts (2 days)
Connects with: The Forgotten Coast · US 90: The Florida Backbone · US 90: The Creole Coast
More in the Gulf Coast: US 90: The Creole Coast · The Forgotten Coast · Bayou Teche & the Cajun Prairie · River Road & the Felicianas · US 90: The Florida Backbone · US 90: Rice & Rails · LA 1: End of the Road · Cane River & El Camino Real · Poverty Point & the Delta Parishes