Padre Island National Seashore

Padre Island National Seashore protects about sixty-six miles of the island's undeveloped Gulf beach, dunes, coastal prairie and the hypersaline Laguna Madre behind it. The island has been called la Isla Blanca and the Isla de los Malaguitas, for a band of Karankawa people, and the name Padre comes from Padre Nicolás Ballí, a priest who settled its southern tip around 1804. From then until the seashore it was almost all cattle range, and the Novillo Line Camp across from Bird Island Basin Road is left from those years. Ralph Yarborough's bill passed in 1962, Kennedy signed it on September 23, and Lady Bird Johnson dedicated the seashore on April 8, 1968, after condemnation suits pushed the land cost to nearly $23 million. Mineral rights stayed private.

The seashore's best-known work is with the Kemp's ridley, the smallest and most endangered sea turtle. A pilot's 1947 film at Rancho Nuevo in Tamaulipas showed an estimated 40,000 females nesting in a day; by 1985 fewer than 300 nested in Mexico. Since the 1970s the park has worked with Mexico and other agencies to build a second nesting colony here, finding nests, incubating eggs and releasing hatchlings, and in 2026 Texas recorded more than 650 ridley nests, a new high. Ridleys nest by day from mid-March through August; if you see one, flag a patroller or call 1-866-TURTLE5.

Start at the Malaquite Visitor Center. Beyond the paved road, the beach is a driving route, and four-wheel drive is recommended.