7 Places Along the Virginia Coast Where the Public Beach Ends and Trespassing Starts

Only one percent of Virginia’s tidal shoreline is open to the public, according to the state’s Middle Peninsula Chesapeake Bay Public Access Authority.

The other ninety-nine percent belongs to somebody.

Under Virginia law, a private deed can reach past the dry sand and the wet sand, all the way down to where the tide sits at its lowest.

These are the places along the Virginia coast where that thin strip of public sand runs out and someone else’s property starts.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Property lines, refuge rules, and military access policies are all subject to change.

Camp Pendleton State Military Reservation

Camp Pendleton State Military Reservation is one reason only one percent of Virginia’s tidal shoreline stays open to the public.

It picks up at the south end of Croatan Beach, not right where the Resort Strip’s crowds thin out near Rudee Inlet.

It’s a working Virginia National Guard post, not a park annex.

The Croatan Beach Civic League warns its own members that anyone caught recreating south of the neighborhood’s municipal parking lot faces arrest and prosecution by city, state, and federal authorities.

No fence required.

Step across that line without authorization, and Virginia Beach police and Guard security both treat it as trespassing on state government property.

Joint Expeditionary Base Fort Story

Joint Expeditionary Base Fort Story holds the beach at Cape Henry, where English colonists first came ashore in April 1607.

Reaching that beach today means a security check, not a walk-up.

Every guest over sixteen needs a valid government ID, plus proof of vehicle registration and insurance, before a shuttle carries them from the gate straight to the lighthouse.

There’s no wandering from there.

The base’s own visitor policy says plainly that there’s no access to any other part of the installation, so the miles of sand running both directions from that one overlook stay off-limits to anyone without a military ID.

Step off that shuttle route on your own, and federal law treats it as trespassing on secured military property, an offense under 18 U.S.C. §1382 that carries a fine or up to six months in jail.

Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge

Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge picks up south of Sandbridge, and its rules read nothing like a normal beach day.

The refuge opens only from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Show up outside those hours, and the beach itself becomes off-limits, not just the parking lot.

The North Mile and every dune along the refuge stay closed to the public year-round, sunrise curfew or not.

That’s federal land.

Walking past a closed-area sign at Back Bay isn’t a gray area.

It’s a federal wildlife violation, the same as hunting out of season.

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge runs its beach access backward from how a typical park works.

Its own rules state that unless an area is explicitly posted as a nature trail, road, parking lot, or building, it’s closed to public entry by default.

The open beach at Toms Cove is the exception, not the rule.

That changes fast.

From March through August, refuge biologists fence off nesting sites for the threatened piping plover, and those closures can swallow whole sections of open sand overnight.

A beach that was open on Monday can be closed by Friday.

The wild ponies get the attention, but the piping plovers decide where anyone can stand.

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Wallops Flight Facility sits on Wallops Island, directly north of the open public beach at Chincoteague and Assateague.

The whole island belongs to the federal government.

NASA’s own visitor center guidance states that the center is the only facility at Wallops Flight Facility open to the public, and that it isn’t even located on the island or the main base.

There’s no walk-up access.

Wallops Island answers to NASA’s own security office, not the county sheriff.

A beachcomber who wanders north from Assateague onto agency land is trespassing on an active federal launch range, not just someone else’s fence line.

Bay Creek

Bay Creek sits on the bay side of Cape Charles, at the southern tip of Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

The golf resort’s own marketing calls its shoreline a private two-mile beach, reserved for residents, members, and their guests.

In many East Coast states, a passerby could still legally walk the wet sand below the high-tide line in front of a private beach like that one.

Not in Virginia.

State law lets a waterfront deed run all the way down to the mean low-water mark, so Bay Creek’s ownership reaches past the dry sand that visitors typically assume marks the property line.

A driver headed south on Route 13 can watch the Chesapeake Bay open up for miles.

Almost none of that shoreline belongs to whoever happens to be looking at it.

Plum Tree Island National Wildlife Refuge

Plum Tree Island National Wildlife Refuge sits along the Chesapeake Bay in Poquoson, about seven miles north of Hampton.

The whole place used to be an active Army bombing range.

There’s no strolling here.

Its own visitor page puts it plainly: Public access is prohibited, and unauthorized entry is a federal offense punishable by fine and possibly imprisonment.

Bombs and other contaminants left behind from that history are the reason.

The refuge still allows wildlife viewing and photography from the mainland and adjacent public waters, along with seasonal hunting and fishing by boat near the Cow Island unit.

Step onto the land itself, though, and a kayaker or angler moves from public water into a closed federal refuge.

That’s a violation of federal law under 16 U.S.C. §668dd, punishable by up to a year in prison.

A Boundary Most States Draw Differently

Virginia draws its public-private beach boundary differently than most coastal states do.

In 1819, the Virginia General Assembly extended private landownership from the high-water mark all the way to the low-water mark, a shift the National Sea Grant Law Center’s own review of Virginia’s submerged-lands history confirms independently.

That law is still on the books.

Virginia went the other way.

Most coastal states stop private title at the high-tide line.

That means a walk that’s perfectly legal on a beach in a neighboring state can be trespassing on a Virginia beach covering the exact same tidal stretch.