Wife and I are in the I-pad stages of planning a 4/5 day trip to St. Augustine in Feb/March, neither of us have ever been there. We are looking there thinking it is a lot like Charleston with it’s History. We will just pick a B&B based on reviews online, we have never had a bad experience with a B&B. We like doing the normal couples things like riding bikes, walking around, hitting local dives/happy hours, checking out the state parks…Just not sure if we should look at staying out towards the beach or in the historic district. Any comments about the area, good or bad, would be appreciated. Thanks
I was stationed in JAX for about 5 years and my sister in law just bought a condo in St. Augustine. I have been to St. Augustine more than I can count. It is a lot like Charleston with tons of history but it is much smaller. You can walk just about anywhere in the historic district. There are lots of those touristy tours you can take but I strongly recommend taking Gold Tours with Pete and Maureen Gold. They are extremely nice and knowledgeable about St. Augustine. If you are looking for some decent seafood check out Harry’s and reserve a table on the balcony during the sunset. Have a bottle of bubbly waiting and some flowers and you can probably guess the rest of your evening. If you like beer go to JP Henlys which is very close to two popular B&Bs in the historic area. A great local?s bar is Scarlett Oharas and it is supposed to be really haunted but I am usually too drunk to notice by the time I leave. If you don’t want to drive anywhere stay in the historic area. If it was me, I can drive 15 minutes from my house and see a beach in Charleston but I have to drive 5 hours see St. Augustine. If you have any questions let me know.
Thank You JINative, that’s exactly the info I was looking for…
We decided to stay in the Historic District so that we don’t have to drive after several beverages…We narrowed it down to 2 B&B’s near JP Henly’s that have great reviews. Probably book it this weekend. Didn’t think about the tour thing but we have done them in other cities so we’ll probably do one from Gold’s. I checked out Harry’s website and that is exactly the kind of place we like to visit, kind of reminds me of Kelly’s in Key West. Been reading several reviews and it seems everything is haunted, that’s fine.
Keep it coming with the local hangouts, that’s our thing, we’ll have 4 days/nights to take it in. Any other good Happy Hour places? Historic places that are a must see?
I need to refresh my memory on this Ponce de Leon dude…
Edit - This should be a great History trip for us, I can’t wait. In 1513 Ponce de Leon lands in St. Augustine, 157 years later the White people land in West Ashley…