Skidaway Island
About skidaway island
Most of the island is The Landings — a private, gated community that's been here since the 1970s and has grown into one of the most established residential communities on the Georgia coast. Six championship golf courses, two deep-water marinas, 30 miles of walking and biking trails, nine restaurants, and a fitness center that would embarrass most gyms. It's large enough to have real infrastructure and small enough that people actually know their neighbors. South Harbor occupies the southern end of the island and Modena Island sits at the northern edge — smaller, quieter communities for those who want the Skidaway address without the full Landings footprint.
Skidaway Island sits about 12 miles south of downtown Savannah, separated from the rest of the world by the Diamond Causeway and surrounded by salt marsh, maritime forest, and the Intracoastal Waterway. It's one of those places where the drive in alone tells you something has shifted.
Skidaway Island State Park rounds out the island with trails, marsh overlooks, and some of the best birding in coastal Georgia.
The Lifestyle
Life on Skidaway runs at the pace of the tide. Mornings start slow here, a walk or a bike ride under the live oaks, sometimes with deer for company. When you want to be on the water or out in the quiet, the state park's marsh boardwalks and trails are right at hand. And when you want the city, downtown Savannah is about twenty minutes up the road.
Skidaway Island is not The Landings
Those two names get used as though they mean the same thing, and they don't. The Landings is the largest community here and the most visible, so it stands in for the whole island in conversation. But a search set to Skidaway Island will hand you homes in Modena Island and South Harbor too, each with its own gate, its own association, and its own documents.
Moon River is the name that trips people most. It's a waterway, it's a neighborhood inside The Landings, and South Harbor sits along it. Three different things, one word. Isles of South Harbor is another: an enclave tied to South Harbor, not a part of The Landings.
Portal maps won't settle any of this. What decides it are recorded plats, legal descriptions and the association's own documents, and those same documents decide your dues, your dock rights and your gate access.
The communities on the island
The Landings on Skidaway Island takes up the center of the island and most of the south, and it has been building since the early 1970s, so the housing spans every decade since and a long list of builders. New homes still go up now and then, fewer than in the earlier phases. Detached homes mostly, with attached and condominium forms as well. Inside it are named neighborhoods, Marshwood and Plantation and Franklin Creek and Deer Creek among them, and even the count varies by who's describing it, because some sources treat a phase as a neighborhood and others don't. A home there is usually marketed under both The Landings and its smaller name.
Modena Island is at the north end, off Modena Island Drive. A small gated waterfront enclave of detached houses, on land that was a plantation, then a cattle farm and hunting preserve, before any of it was residential. It's established rather than under development, and it's separate from The Landings in every way that shows up on paper.
South Harbor sits at the southern tip, at the end of Green Island Road, facing the Moon River and the Intracoastal. Private, gated, and run by its own owners' association. It is not a Landings neighborhood, whatever a listing may suggest.
A few things that make owning on Skidaway different
The association and the club are two separate things here, with separate documents and separate obligations. Golf, dining and marina access don't arrive automatically with a deed. Knowing that early means you get to choose what you want to belong to rather than sort it out after closing.
Skidaway sits in unincorporated Chatham County rather than inside the city, so there's no City of Savannah line on the tax bill even though the mail says Savannah. What takes its place is the county's Special Service District, which covers police, fire and trash out here. County, the school board and transit apply either way. It's a swap rather than a saving, and my guide to property taxes in Savannah walks through how the layers stack.
There's no single flood designation for the island, or for The Landings, Modena or South Harbor. Zone, base flood elevation and what insurance runs come down to the individual parcel, and sitting near a lagoon or the marsh doesn't predict it in either direction. It's an address question, and it's answerable well before you're committed.
School assignment runs through Savannah-Chatham County and is set by address rather than by island or community. If that's part of the decision, my guide to Savannah schools covers how choice and magnet placement work.
EXPLORE SKIDAWAY ISLAND NEIGHBORHOODS
Homes for Sale in Skidaway Island
OPEN HOUSES ON SKIDAWAY ISLAND
Open house times come straight from the MLS and change through the week. See what’s open in Skidaway Island right now, or browse every open house across Savannah.
New to Savannah? These cover the parts that are easy to miss: retiring here, property taxes and weather, flooding and insurance.
Thinking about making skidaway island home?
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Whether you’re buying, selling, or you just want to know what your home is worth, I’m happy to talk it through.
