so i just got my first drone, nothing fancy just a mini 3 pro, and i want to fly it at the beach near where i'm staying in florida. i looked up some stuff online but honestly i cant figure out if its legal or not. like i know there's the FAA rules but then i also heard florida has its own stuff and some beaches are county parks which have their own rules?? its really confusing. i'm not trying to do anything shady just want some nice footage of the sunset over the water. do i need a license for this or what

okay so theres a few layers to this and it tripped me up too when i first started. FAA rules apply everywhere in the US regardless of state, so if your drone is over 250g you need to register it on the FAA DroneZone site, thats like $5 and takes 5 minutes. the mini 3 pro is over 250g so yeah you need to do that. for recreational flying you dont technically need a Part 107 license but you do need to follow the recreational flier rules which means staying under 400ft, keeping it in visual line of sight, not flying near airports without authorization through LAANC or the B4UFLY app, stuff like that. as for florida specifically, the state actually passed a law a while back that kind of preempts local governments from making their own drone rules, so a county park saying no drones is kind of in a gray area legally. but in practice if a ranger tells you to pack it up, you pack it up. always worth checking if the beach is in any controlled airspace before you go.

just to add to what the other person said, some of the state parks in florida have their own posted signage banning drones and even if the legal situation is murky i just wouldnt bother arguing with a park ranger about it. not worth it. sunset beach shots are great but there's usually a public beach nearby that isnt a state park where nobody cares. also check B4UFLY seriously it takes 30 seconds and it'll tell you if you're near any restricted airspace. a lot of beaches down there are actually fine from an airspace standpoint.