Cumberland Island is best approached as a wilderness experience with a remarkable layer of Gilded Age history on top. The wild beach along the entire eastern shore is 18 miles of undeveloped Atlantic coast — one of the longest stretches of wild beach on the East Coast of the United States.
The southern end of the island has the most history. The Dungeness ruins are the remains of a Carnegie mansion burned in 1959; the tabby foundations, the brick chimneys, and the formal garden gone wild in the subtropical heat are genuinely atmospheric. The First African Baptist Church at the Settlement — a tiny 19th-century structure of boards and light — is where John F. Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette in 1996, in a ceremony so secret that no press was present.
In the middle of the island, Plum Orchard is a grand 1898 Carnegie mansion occasionally open for National Park Service tours. The wild horses are everywhere — feral descendants of horses brought by settlers, now accustomed enough to humans that you can approach quite close.
Wildlife beyond the horses includes alligators in the freshwater ponds, white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, and armadillos. Bird life is excellent, particularly in the maritime forest and along the marsh edges.