In the game
Not all of Port Gellhorn is neon. Rockstar’s screenshots hint that the region’s coast has a lot of empty beach, low dune and open sky in it beyond the strip. Fans who know the Panhandle matched that emptiness to the stretch east of Panama City, the part locals call the Forgotten Coast.
This is a fan match built on mood and geography rather than a landmark. The Panhandle’s coast changes character sharply once you pass Tyndall Air Force Base heading east: the towers stop, the beach houses go up on stilts, and the towns get small and old. It fits the picture of a region where a resort strip sits next to a lot of nothing. Rockstar has not named any of these towns, so read this page as the best real-world version of what the screenshots suggest.
The real place
Apalachicola was a cotton port before the Civil War, one of the biggest on the Gulf, and its brick warehouses and shaded streets still look the part. For a century afterward it was oysters: Apalachicola Bay once produced the great majority of Florida’s oysters. The bay collapsed in the 2010s, the state closed the wild harvest for five years from 2020, and any reopening since has been limited. Ask where the oysters on your plate came from; the town’s raw bars are still worth it either way.
West along US 98, Port St. Joe is the gateway to Cape San Blas and St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, whose beach regularly lands on best-in-America lists. Then Mexico Beach, which took the eye of Hurricane Michael in October 2018 at Category 5. The town was flattened and is still rebuilding, house by house. You will see the gaps.
The thing a GTA fan will recognize is the road itself: US 98 with the Gulf on one side, pine forest on the other, and a raised wooden house every now and then.
Go there
Drive US 98 east from Panama City Beach. Mexico Beach is about an hour, Port St. Joe twenty minutes more, Apalachicola about two hours. Stop in Apalachicola for the historic district, the John Gorrie museum (he invented mechanical ice-making here) and the waterfront. Turn down to Cape San Blas for the beach.
Indian Pass Raw Bar, on the road out toward Cape San Blas, is the famous stop: oysters, shrimp, beer from a self-serve cooler, honor system. Hours are limited, so check before you drive out. Apalachicola’s downtown has several seafood places that have been around a long time; walk and pick one.
The honest warning: this coast is remote. Gas stations and cell service thin out, most places close early, and summer brings heat and biting flies on the beach. Hurricane season runs June to November and peaks in September; if a storm is in the Gulf, go somewhere else.
Nearby
- St. Andrews State Park: white sand and the jetties: the last stop before the Forgotten Coast starts, and the first white beach heading back.
- Port Panama City: the working port: you cross the bay past the port on your way east.
- The fishing pier at Panama City Beach: the busy end of the same coast, for contrast.
Updated September 12, 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us.