Little St. Simons Island: Where Conservation Is Second Nature

Little St. Simons Island is an 11,000-acre barrier island off the Georgia coast, one of those rare places where careful stewardship has left nature largely untouched. Seven of us spent five days there, settling into the rustic lodge and cottages so we could spend time exploring the island with naturalists as guides. I was leading the trip, something I wasn’t sure about, because I’d never visited before. But my friend Ned, a collector of interesting people and places, insisted. 

“A perfect Bluedot Travel place,” Ned said. “And you have to meet Stacia. She’s amazing.” 

The ferry carried us from the fully developed world of neighboring St. Simons Island, with its traditional Southern homes, to something altogether different. As we stepped ashore, we looked up into an endless canopy of live oaks draped with Spanish moss that hung like antique lace. We would later learn that Spanish moss isn’t moss at all, but a bromeliad — a cousin of the pineapple — that spends its entire life suspended in the air, never touching the soil.

Behind us, a bird rose from the water’s edge, and the rush of its wings was amplified in the stillness, introducing us to the exotic sounds of the wild. We immediately surrendered to the place.

Little St. Simons has been privately held since the late 18th century. Over the years, it passed through unusually thoughtful hands, each steward seeming to understand something essential: Its greatest value lay not in what could be built, but in what could be left alone.

The island’s current keepers are Hank and Wendy Paulson — Hank, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary and CEO of Goldman Sachs; Wendy, a lifelong conservationist and birder of extraordinary knowledge and passion. They purchased the island in 2003 not as investors but, in Wendy’s words, as caretakers.

“I’ve always said that we are not owners but stewards, and I still don’t think of us as owners,” she said in an interview with Elegant Island Living. “We wanted to maintain this island as a shining example of good ecological care.” 

In 2015, the Paulsons placed the entire island under a permanent conservation easement with The Nature Conservancy, ensuring it will remain protected in perpetuity. It was a remarkable act of foresight and generosity. The Nature Conservancy had identified Little St. Simons as one of the highest conservation priorities on the Georgia coast decades earlier; the Paulsons made that vision permanent.

Today, the island welcomes only a small number of guests — never more than 32 at a time — who come to walk seven miles of undisturbed beach, kayak tidal rivers, fish the shoreline, and experience one of the last intact barrier-island ecosystems on the Eastern Seaboard. 

Our group of seven moved around the island in pick-up trucks, evoking memories of summer camp, taking in all parts of the island under the guidance of a remarkable group of young naturalists: Adam, Eva, Kevin, and Kate. Each was at different stages of university study. They seemed to know everything: the nesting habits of painted buntings, the migration routes of roseate spoonbills, the territorial behavior of turkey vultures.

They introduced us to grey herons, white ibis probing the mud with their curved scarlet bills, anhingas drying their wings like dark angels in the morning sun, and brown pelicans gliding inches above the water with prehistoric grace.

They possess the passion of people who have given themselves to something that matters. In their company, you begin to see what you would otherwise walk past. You begin to pay very close attention.

The island’s ecosystems are astonishing in their variety. Maritime forest gives way to freshwater wetlands, which open onto vast salt marshes glowing like hammered gold in the late afternoon light. Dozens of creeks and ponds lace the landscape. The Altamaha River, one of the most biologically diverse river systems in the United States, empties into the waters surrounding the island, its sediment helping shape and expand the coastline over time.

Loggerhead sea turtles nest on the beaches. Alligators patrol the ponds with ancient calm.

But nothing prepared us for the roseate spoonbills.

Watching them from a wooden platform overlooking the marsh, I understood immediately why Audubon painted them again and again. They seemed almost imaginary: luminous pink birds carrying extraordinary spatula-shaped bills through shallow water, sweeping side to side as they filtered for fish and crustaceans. They were hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th century, prized for the millinery trade. Entire colonies disappeared.

That they are back today, gathering in rosy flocks across the Georgia marshes, feels like a small miracle — and a reminder that nature, when given the chance, can be astonishingly resilient.

Then there were the painted buntings. The male is so extravagantly colored — cobalt blue, emerald green, brilliant red — that he looks less like a real bird than an artist’s fantasy of one. We asked why the female is so much plainer, not unusual in nature, I gather.

The answer was both practical and profound. While she incubates eggs and raises young, camouflage is survival. The male advertises his fitness through brilliance and display. The female survives through invisibility. It is she, hidden among the leaves, who carries the future of the species. Nature, it seems, has always understood that some of the most important work goes unseen.

On our last morning, Diane Klement, a Ph.D. researcher who visits the island often, sat quietly on our porch before sunrise. She gently removed a female bunting from a feeder, weighed her, examined her feathers, recorded careful observations, and then released her back into the morning air. She worked with a confidence and motherly tenderness that was its own kind of beauty. Watching her, I thought: This is what devotion looks like. Her face showed none of the stress or anxiety I often see in young people. 

The accommodations at Little St. Simons reflect the spirit of the island itself: comfortable, welcoming, and unpretentious. The lodge and cottages feature broad porches, ceiling fans, rocking chairs, and shelves filled with books. Everything encourages you to slow down.

Meals are served family style at long communal tables. The food is local, seasonal, and abundant. There is something deeply satisfying about sharing dinner with people who have spent the day marveling at the same things as you. By the second evening, they no longer feel like strangers.

Then there was the corn snake.

On our final night, one of the naturalists produced it with the casual ease of someone who handles snakes every day. Before I fully understood what was happening, I was holding it — cool, smooth, and surprisingly muscular — as it moved purposefully through my hands before settling its head against my chest for a nap. 

I am not, by nature, a snake person. Quite the opposite. Yet there I was, encouraged by my fellow travelers, playfully goaded, then pleased by my own willingness to hold it. That is what Little St. Simons does. It expands your sense of what is possible.

And then, just a few minutes before our departure, I met the legendary Stacia Hendricks, the island's former naturalist manger and current director of special projects, and the person Ned told me I must meet.

Earthy, warm, and deeply knowledgeable, Stacia greeted me as though we were old friends. She remembered our phone conversation months earlier when I was asking her about the place, and before long we were talking eagerly. 

I understood why Ned had singled her out. Stacia embodies the spirit of Little St. Simons. Her love for the Georgia coast, its wildlife, and the delicate ecosystems she helps protect is evident in every conversation. She sets the tone of the place and is a role model for the young naturalists who are provided a salary and living quarters. She speaks about the island not as a possession or even a destination, but as a living place deserving of care, attention, and gratitude. Meet her here.

Throughout the trip, our group kept saying the same thing in different ways: “I had no idea it would be this wonderful.”

None of us did.

When we stood together overlooking the marsh at golden hour, watching a roseate spoonbill lift into the sky in a blaze of pink, and felt — for just a moment — that the world was exactly as it should be.

As the ferry carried us back across the water, leaving behind the oaks, marshes, spoonbills, and the people who care so deeply for them, we all made the same promise.

We would return. 

How to Visit Little St. Simons Island

Little St. Simons Island, which is located just off the Georgia coast midway between Savannah, Georgia, and Jacksonville, Florida, is accessible only by ferry, and you must have reservations for either an overnight stay at the Lodge or a guided daytrip with an island naturalist to board the boat. 

Overnight stays include accommodations, meals and snacks, boat transportation to and from the island, twice-daily naturalist-led excursions, and use of the island’s bicycles, fishing tackle, and kayaks. Rates are all-inclusive, and reservations can be made a year in advance; the Lodge recommends making reservations six months in advance. Daytrips include naturalist-led tours of the island’s live oak forests, beaches, and salt marshes, along with a picnic lunch with sandwiches, snacks, and soft drinks. 

Reservations for both overnight stays and daytrips can be made through the island’s reservations desk at (912) 638-7472 or on their website.