Quiet, Peaceful Spots in Virginia Beach

Illustrative photo for Quiet, Peaceful Spots in Virginia Beach — not an actual photo of any specific listed place
Illustrative photo. Photo by Markus Winkler via Pexels.

How We Picked

Every pick here is tagged "Quiet & Peaceful" in our directory — a detail documented on the business or place's own website or listing, not word-of-mouth. We pulled every real, currently-tagged listing across every category it applies to (capped here at 15 for a readable list — see the full tagged set via each category page). Details change, so confirm current hours/availability directly with the business before a visit.

The Picks

  1. Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge

    Immediately south of Sandbridge, Back Bay NWR protects thousands of acres of barrier-spit habitat — beach, dunes, maritime forest, and freshwater marsh — that host huge concentrations of migratory waterfowl in winter and shorebirds much of the year.

  2. Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge Beach

    Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge protects about 3 miles of Atlantic shoreline south of Sandbridge, reached on foot from the Visitor Contact Station via two boardwalks over the dunes: the quarter-mile Seaside Trail and the slightly longer Dune Trail with its midway viewing platform.

  3. Baja Restaurant

    Sandbridge's end-of-the-road seafood spot right on Back Bay, with live entertainment and sunset water views.

  4. Chic's Beach (Chesapeake Bay Beach)

    Chic's Beach — officially Chesapeake Beach, never called that by locals — is the bay answer to the Atlantic beaches: gentle, shallow water with small waves, views of the Bay Bridge-Tunnel stretching over the horizon, and a laid-back residential neighborhood behind the sand.

  5. Croatan Beach

    Across Rudee Inlet from the Resort Strip, Croatan is Virginia Beach's surf beach: the Croatan Jetty is one of the city's two classic breaks, a left-hander locals prize for its unpredictability against 1st Street Jetty's more consistent right.

  6. Edgar Cayce's A.R.E. (Association for Research and Enlightenment)

    At 67th Street and Atlantic Avenue, a few blocks past the hotels of the Resort Strip, sits the world headquarters of the Association for Research and Enlightenment — the organization built around the readings of Edgar Cayce, the Virginia Beach psychic and 'sleeping prophet' who settled here in 1925 and became one of the city's most famous historical residents.

  7. False Cape Beach

    The most remote beach in Virginia Beach — arguably in Virginia: False Cape State Park's Atlantic shoreline sits beyond Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge with no road access at all.

  8. False Cape State Park

    One of the last undeveloped stretches of the Atlantic coast — and you cannot drive to it.

  9. Gaston's Italian Steakhouse

    Hilltop Italian steakhouse at First Colonial Road pairing Wagyu Bolognese rigatoni with steakhouse surf-and-turf and veal chop.

  10. Great Neck Park

    Established in 1990, this 70-acre district park sits directly on Lynnhaven Bay in the heart of Great Neck — the neighborhood tucked between the river and First Landing State Park.

  11. Kempes Landing Park

    A three-acre park redeveloped from the former home of Kempsville Pony Baseball, Kempes Landing keeps that history visible with a 'Good Game' statue honoring the site's baseball legacy, alongside a domed pavilion and a gazebo.

  12. Lake Lawson / Lake Smith Natural Area

    A 42-acre wooded preserve in Bayside with an outsized 12,000 feet of shoreline on two connected freshwater lakes — which is why anglers and birders treat it as one of the city's best small parks.

  13. Miyazaki Japanese Garden

    Tucked inside 97-acre Red Wing Park, this traditional Japanese garden grew out of Virginia Beach's 1992 sister-city relationship with Miyazaki, Japan — a bond the city of Miyazaki marked with a gift of 100 cherry trees in 2005 and another 55 in 2010.

  14. North End Beach

    North of 42nd Street the Boardwalk ends and the crowds thin out fast: the North End is the same wide Atlantic sand as the Resort Beach with none of the commercial strip behind it — just residential beach houses and street-end access paths.

  15. Sandbridge Beach

    Sandbridge is Virginia Beach's 'Outer Banks in miniature' — about five miles of residential Atlantic beach backed by vacation rentals and dunes, fifteen minutes and a world away from the Resort Strip.

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