The Best Place to Park for Bonita Beach This Season Is on U.S. 41

Where does your Bonita Beach afternoon start this winter? For years the answer was a lot on Hickory Boulevard. From Sunday, November 1, the starting point Lee County points to is a free shopping-center lot at 3300 Bonita Beach Road SW, on the northwest corner of U.S. 41 and Bonita Beach Road. From there an on-demand shuttle takes you to the sand.

That's the change to plan around for the next year. The beach is still open. What's changed is how you get there and what it costs, and those depend on whether you're going alone or with a carload, and on how flexible your timing is.

Two Hundred Spaces Become Thirty-Nine on November 1

On September 8, Lee County Parks & Recreation started Hurricane Ian restoration work at two Bonita sites. The parking lot at Little Hickory Island Beach Park, also called Beach Access #10, at 26082 Hickory Blvd., went behind construction fencing so crews can restore boardwalks and pavilions and replace the restroom building the storm destroyed. Bonita Beach Park, at 27954 Hickory Blvd., closed the same day for repairs to its county office building, restroom, boardwalks and pavilions.

The county's September 2 announcement made Bonita Beach Access #1, at 27890 Hickory Blvd., the main walk-in point for Bonita Beach Park, and said it would stay open until November. The Access #1 page now gives the date as November 1, 2026, and says pedestrian access to the beach will stay open for the length of construction. One wrinkle: the county's general parking lots page lists the Access #1 lot as closed starting September 8, so the county's own pages don't match. The facility page and the original announcement both say November.

WBBH's September 9 report put a number on it. Once Access #1 closes, only 39 of the more than 200 Lee County parking spaces remain. Think of that as losing about four of every five county spaces right as season starts.

The County Already Picked the New Front Door

Lee County didn't leave beachgoers to work this out for themselves. Its announcement names LeeTran's ULTRA On Demand as the way to get from central Bonita Springs to Bonita Beach Park, with beach trips starting from a designated pickup spot in the shopping-center lot at U.S. 41 and Bonita Beach Road. WGCU identified it as the Publix shopping center. Parking there is free.

The mechanics are simple once you've done it once:

1. Download the ULTRA On-Demand Transit app, or book by phone at 239-533-8726, option 7.
2. Park in the lot at 3300 Bonita Beach Road SW and request a ride from the designated pickup spot.
3. Ride to the beach. Service runs seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
4. Book your ride back before 7:30 p.m., when trip requests close.

LeeTran's Bonita Springs brochure lists a standard fare of $3.00 per ride. The live ULTRA page also advertises a $1.50 single ride with promo code BONITARIDE and doesn't give an end date, so check that it still works before you count on it. ULTRA also picks up and drops off anywhere inside its Bonita Springs service zone. If you live inside that zone, you may be able to skip the Publix lot and start from home.

What an Afternoon Costs From Each Starting Point

Through October 31, the baseline is Access #1 at $2 an hour. A three-hour afternoon costs $6 per car, and the Lee County Parks & Recreation Annual Parking Pass works there. That pass doesn't help at a lot that's fenced off, so anyone who used it on Hickory Boulevard has a new cost to weigh.

Laid out like this, the math depends on who's in the car. A solo beachgoer pays $6 round trip on ULTRA at the standard fare, the same as three hours at Access #1 used to cost. With the promo code it's $3, cheaper than the old lot. A carload heading to Barefoot Beach Preserve pays one $10 charge for the whole vehicle. Collier County's free beach permit is for Collier residents, so a household on the Lee side of the county line pays the visitor rate. Lovers Key State Park costs $8 per vehicle. Paddling, fishing-equipment and beach rentals were listed as available daily as of May 1, 2026, but food and the shop were not, so pack lunch.

The Free Lots Are Now the Scarce Ones

Accesses #2 through #9 have always been the quieter option on Hickory Boulevard, and they're still free. With the big county lots closed, those few spaces are what's left of Lee County's parking on this stretch. Here they are, north to south:

• Access #2, 27720 Hickory Blvd.
• Access #3, 27494 Hickory Blvd.
• Access #4, 27260 Hickory Blvd.
• Access #5, 27010 Hickory Blvd.
• Access #6, 26786 Hickory Blvd.
• Access #7, 26590 Hickory Blvd.
• Access #8, 26410 Hickory Blvd.
• Access #9, 26220 Hickory Blvd.

The county doesn't publish space counts for each access. The rules are the same at all of them: no pets, no fires, no grilling on the beach. Shore fishing still needs a saltwater fishing license, and the Resident Annual Saltwater Shoreline Fishing License is free. The county's page for these accesses also warns that the beaches haven't been restored to their pre-Ian condition, that debris keeps washing up and can quickly get buried in sand, and that beach shoes should be worn at all times. Keep a pair in the car.

These small lots are also why the ULTRA option matters. With only 39 county spaces on Hickory Boulevard, there's no guarantee you'll get one. The Publix lot gets you to the beach either way.

Restrooms, Lunch, and the Stretch Between the Fences

Access #1 has never had restrooms. The county page sends visitors to Bonita Beach Park for those, and Bonita Beach Park is now a construction site. According to WBBH, the restrooms at Bonita Beach Park and Access #10 were badly damaged by Hurricane Ian and have been closed for the four years since. At Access #10, the county said it would move the portable restrooms outside the construction fence, closer to the road, so beachgoers can still use them.

The county describes a restaurant between Access #1 and Bonita Beach Park. That's Doc's Beach House at 27908 Hickory Blvd., which lists itself as open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. It sits right between the two construction sites, so it's the place on this part of the beach for lunch, a cold drink, or a place to sit out of the sun. If you plan to drive there, check the restaurant's own parking arrangements first, since the county lots next door are fenced.

How Long This Lasts

The county's estimate is that most of these projects will take about 11 months, and that the beaches stay open the whole time. Counted from the September 8 start, that puts the first two sites into late summer 2027. Access #1 starts almost two months later. The county hasn't published a reopening date for any individual Bonita location, so treat these as rough estimates, not dates for the calendar. Lee County's Parks Project Information Tool is where the county says updates will be posted.

The long wait came down to funding. WBBH reported that a county spokesperson said leaders waited for FEMA money so local taxpayer dollars wouldn't be used. More than $570,000 in FEMA money was allocated in 2024 to design the repairs. A 2025 call for bids drew only one contractor, and FEMA requires at least two. After four contractors bid in June, FEMA approved money for part of the $7 million project, with state emergency funds and tourism tax dollars covering the rest. That money came through in August, and the fences went up in September.

What you get at the end is new restrooms, boardwalks and pavilions at Bonita Beach Park and Little Hickory Island Beach Park, plus a restored Access #1. Until then, the Publix lot at 3300 Bonita Beach Road SW is the one starting point that doesn't depend on finding a space on Hickory Boulevard.

The Shane "Waterfront" Wilson Team answers questions like this all season, from Little Hickory Island to the Imperial River. That includes which streets let you walk to the sand and how getting to the beach works while the lots are fenced. Get in Touch and we'll go over your stretch of Bonita with you.