3 Days for Two in Panama City — Oysters, the Working Waterfront, and a Night Paddle

Base yourself in Historic St. Andrews and start on foot — the most walkable stretch in the region: Beck Avenue, Bayview Avenue, the marina, Oaks by the Bay park, and the Publishing Museum all sit inside a few compact blocks. Walk the Beck Avenue retail row — Little Village, Sunjammers, The Trendy Side, Folklore, GypsyWillow, Sound Collective records, Baytowne Bridal — independently owned, with individual hours unconfirmed, so treat browsing as flexible. Stop at Oaks by the Bay Park for the Sentry Oak, a heritage live oak marked at 250-plus years old (one account says closer to 300). There are no restrooms here.

This district’s dining roster — Amavida Coffee, Finn’s Island Style Grub, Charlie Coram’s Place, Alice’s on Bayview, and others — comes from the district’s own promotional page and is directory-level, not individually confirmed open today. Call ahead.

1134 Beck Avenue, open Friday 1–5pm. Housed in a 1920 building individually listed on the National Register, it holds original printing presses and a working print shop with live demonstrations — allow 45 minutes to an hour. No admission fee is published, so we quote none. If time allows, Native Spirit(s) Museum and Gallery at 1101 Beck Avenue covers Indigenous Florida Panhandle culture; its hours are unverified, so check before you walk over.

Walk Bayview Avenue to the marina boardwalk for sunset at the Pelican Tree — a live oak killed by Hurricane Opal in 1995, carved into pelicans, the district’s signature photograph. St. Andrews Marina is a working boatyard mid-reconstruction (bulkhead work approved February 2026, contract approved June 2026, roughly 18 months estimated), so expect visible construction and confirm visitor parking directly. Dinner: Hunt’s Oyster Bar & Seafood, 1150 Beck Avenue, since 1966, upstairs overlooking the marina — open Friday 11am–10pm. If you’d rather try Captain’s Table Fish House at 1110 Beck Avenue, its status is genuinely unclear across sources — one listing shows it closed, another active — so call ahead.

This is St. Andrew Bay, not the Gulf — calm and shallow, but with no lifeguards and no flag system anywhere on it. Any beach-flag warning referenced for “Panama City” belongs to Panama City Beach’s Gulf program and doesn’t describe bay conditions. Check NWS Tallahassee’s marine forecast and FWC’s Red Tide Current Status (updated daily at 5pm, with a written report Fridays) before any water activity — as of July 25, 2026, no red tide organism was observed in the most recent week, but that’s a snapshot, not a forecast.

Zero driving if you’re based in the district. From downtown it’s 3 road miles via 10th Street and Beck Avenue — road miles only; we don’t publish drive times, because the Hathaway Bridge corridor is under multi-year widening and a single lane closure changes the answer. Parking: a small free lot at Oaks by the Bay’s Beck Avenue entrance; an unattended, ungated lot at the marina, 3151 W 10th Street; on-street on Beck and Bayview. New St. Andrews parking limitations took effect January 16, 2026 and their content could not be retrieved, so confirm with the city before relying on any parking rule stated anywhere. The marina lot is unattended and ungated — secure valuables.

Since it’s Saturday, start back in St. Andrews: breakfast at Luna Muna Cafebar, Beck Avenue and 11th Court, on one of its rare open days — its published hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday only, 7:30am–3pm, unusually narrow, so confirm before planning around it. It’s also the district’s most accommodating kitchen for gluten-free, vegan, or vegetarian needs. Then the Market at St. Andrews, at Oaks by the Bay Park, 9am–1pm, for produce and prepared food under the Sentry Oak.

Bayside Rentals, next to the Visitors Center at 101 W Beach Drive, rents paddleboards, hydrobikes, and pontoons directly into the water; prices aren’t published, so verify at booking. If you’d rather book an offshore trip, Southern Dawn Charters runs deep-sea and overnight sport fishing from St. Andrews Marina (3151 W 10th Street, 850-527-2455) on the Miss K-C and the Patriot — a full-day commitment, and the only charter confirmed to actually depart the marina. Then drive downtown, 3 road miles.

Walk a stretch of the Panama City Mural Trail — fifteen-plus murals, free and self-guided, spanning downtown and St. Andrews, starting near the Visitors Center. Then Panama City Center for the Arts, 19 E 4th Street, open Saturday 10am–5pm, city-owned, managed by Bay Arts Alliance, with 30-plus free exhibitions a year.

Downtown’s Social District lets you carry a drink between businesses: buy at a participating venue (green signage), get it in a transparent 16-ounce cup with the official sticker, and carry it into participating retail shops (blue signage) — but never from one alcohol-selling venue into another, and never past the boundary, which runs Harrison Avenue from the marina to 6th Street plus Grace and Park Avenues to 3rd Street. Two drinks per patron at a time, maximum. Its current days, hours, and boundary are unverified — it launched as a Friday-and-Saturday trial and may still be transitioning — so check with the Downtown Improvement Board, 850-785-2554, before building an evening around it. Dinner at History Class Brewing Co., 6 E 4th Street, open Saturday 11am–10pm — an actual brewery with Southern bites and WWII and Wainwright Shipyard programming. Cap the night with Glow Float’s guided nighttime LED paddleboard tour on the bay.

In April 1942 the J.A. Jones Company was contracted to build a shipyard here. Over the next three years it launched more than 100 Liberty ships into St. Andrew Bay, cutting build time from 230 days to an average of 42, before closing in 1945. There is no standing shipyard museum or heritage park — the Museum of Florida History documents the site online, and on the ground, History Class Brewing is the only place carrying the story into its programming.

Glow Float’s night paddle is on St. Andrew Bay — no lifeguards, no flag system, at night or by day — regardless of what the flag report says for Panama City Beach’s Gulf side. Confirm the operator’s weather-cancellation policy, and check the day’s marine forecast beforehand.

St. Andrews to downtown is roughly 3 road miles via 10th Street and Beck Avenue — road miles only; the Hathaway Bridge work zone doesn’t touch this route, since you’re on the mainland side. Downtown parking specifics — rates, time limits, whether a garage exists — are unverified, so none are published here. A 2024 report cited $1-per-hour metered Harrison Avenue parking with a two-hour limit and free surrounding lots, but that reporting is two years stale; confirm with the city.

Drive across the Hathaway Bridge to St. Andrews State Park, 4607 State Park Lane — open 8am to sundown, 365 days a year. Vehicle entry is $8 for 2–8 people, $4 single occupant, $2 pedestrian or cyclist, with boat launch $12–16 — verify current price. Gulf and lagoon beaches, jetties, nature trails, snorkeling, five ecological landscapes. Do not confuse this park with Historic St. Andrews: they share a name, sit roughly 8–10 road miles apart (approximate, secondary source) on opposite sides of the Hathaway Bridge, and are different places entirely.

Shell Island is split between two owners, and which portion you are on decides the rules. The western portion is St. Andrews State Park — state land, and the section the passenger ferry and shuttle land on. Tyndall Air Force Base owns the east end and shares a property line with the park there. The usual way for a Panama City visitor to reach the island is that ferry, which departs from inside St. Andrews State Park with tickets sold online or at the park; a ferry or shuttle trip to the state park portion requires no Tyndall permit at all. The permit question belongs to the Tyndall section alone: if you plan to reach the east end independently — by private boat, to fish, or by ranging east past the state park portion — check Tyndall’s iSportsman portal for current permit and ID rules before you go, as you should for anywhere described as the West Unit near Redfish Point or Davis Point. That end is an active military installation and federal trespassing rules apply there. The 2026 ferry season, hours, crossing time, and fare are unverified, so none are published here.

Drive US-98 east, roughly 25 road miles to Mexico Beach — quiet, low-rise, none of Panama City Beach’s strip. US-98 crosses Tyndall Air Force Base property along the way. Through traffic passes freely in normal operations: the Tyndall Flyover Project built elevated overpasses specifically so public traffic bypasses the secured perimeter without stopping, and you need no ID to drive it. It has closed for emergencies before (a 2013 drone crash, and after Hurricane Michael), so we won’t call it permanently open in absolute terms. Do not plan to stop on base land — the beaches visible from the highway, including one often called “Crooked Island Beach” on travel sites, require an advance-purchase iSportsman recreation permit with a background check, not a walk-up option.

The Gulf side has an actual flag warning system, run by the City of Panama City Beach Fire Department and its Beach & Surf Patrol — confirm which specific beach it covers. St. Andrews State Park’s own flag policy is not detailed in our sourcing, so check with the park office, 850-708-6100, rather than assuming Panama City Beach’s citywide flags apply there. And note what today changes and what it doesn’t: the bay you paddled on Days 1 and 2 still has no lifeguards and no flag system at all. Check FWC’s Red Tide Current Status and NWS Tallahassee’s marine forecast the morning you go, either branch.

Return for a final dinner. Harrison’s Kitchen & Bar, 5 Harrison Avenue, is open Sunday 10am–9pm with marina and bay views, and is the only restaurant in the city confirmed to take reservations through OpenTable. Hunt’s and The Place are both closed Sundays — don’t route there tonight.

Panama City to Panama City Beach and St. Andrews State Park: 13 road miles. Panama City to Mexico Beach: 25 road miles. Both via US-98. Road miles only — we do not publish drive times for this corridor, because US-98 is under multi-year widening construction through roughly 2030 and the Hathaway Bridge is the only crossing; a single wreck or lane closure changes the answer. Parking: St. Andrews State Park charges the vehicle fee above at the gate. Mexico Beach has no confirmed parking-fee structure in our sourcing, so none is quoted — confirm locally.