St. Augustine Fl: America's Oldest City

Is St Augustine Really the Oldest City in America?

St. Augustine,  Fl: really is America's Oldest City...so why don't more history books name it and celebrate it as such?  Tell you in a minute, because many readers of this blog who think they know the answer might answer Jamestown or one of the "cities" around Williams burg. CLICK HERE for a VIDEO TOUR.

The answer as to which is correct depends upon how you define "America'. If it is the general geography that defines the United States, the  St Augustine, FL truly is America's oldest city. But if you define it in political terms as to what was America or some of the original colonies which emerged to become the United States, then Jamestown is correct.

Tram Tour

You see, for much of this time St Augustine was really a Spanish colony and settlement, and not part of the US.  In fact, it was Spanish, British and other and a real financial disaster for Spain because the "expected to find" gold and wealth never materialized and it cost a ton of money to establish and maintain the Fort and area.

But so much for the history and time to find out why St Augustine, FL is a favorite east coast vacation destination and actually is Fl's second most visited vacation destination, right after Orlando.

 Visit our companion Web Site, East Coast Vacations HERE 

What's To Do In St Augustine, Fl?

Well, there's enough to do there to spend a week!  We suggest that the first thing you do of course is to book your lodging in St Augustine, and while there's many popular hotels on I 95 and US 1 within just minutes of the Historical Area, the best place to stay is right in the historical area.. either a hotel or a nice quaint St Augustine Bed and Breakfast.  If you have chosen this a vacation destination, possibly even this web site will have helped you, but if you are in the planning stage,  you'll enjoy your visit much more if you have prepared and read up on it. Here's one resource:

OK.. you have settled in and are ready to hit it early the next day, and the first thing we suggest is a historical area tour... but before you start, plan on an evening harbor cruise. with or without a meal.

There are two principal tram operators in St Augustine as of the publishing of this blog, and  they are both good and comparably priced.  If you are not staying in town, drive to one of them and you can park  your car there free (otherwise there is a multi story muncipal garage.. street parking is hard). Make your way to one of them and purchase a combo package which gives you the tram and discounted admissions to the various sites in town. Depending on your age and the ages of your party, you may want to select certain ones and not select others.  As an adult, we certainly wanted to include the Winery and wine tasting. If you have young kids, you may want to skip this.  You can mix and match, but once you start, you'll take your map (did you get your copy above?) and now you can get on and off the tram at will. There's usually one by each stop about every 15 minutes.(in season).

ST Augustine Beach

On our last visit we started out with the Old Town Jail at St Augustine, then the History Museum at the north end of the  district, then on to the monument, then headed south toward town. That first little visit took about 1 1/2 hours, a time determined by our own interest. In the area in town we visited a couple old buildings, a school, and then broke for lunch. In summer it really gets hot. After that, we headed toward the Fort. This is one site not on the commercial tour and you can expect to pay a nominal admission fee. Touring the fort     per se doesn't take that long.. maybe 40 minutes, but the most interesting part is to listen to one of the costumed character en actors tell the tour group about the history!  Would you believe this Fort was never conquered and how British cannon shells embedded themselves in the fort walls; got retrieved the Spanish, and fired right back at the British!!!  This has twice the character of the Alamo!

Post to be completed.. this can become a book if we don't edit it down!

More on the St Augustine Tram Tours

Hotel PonceDe Leon Flager College

Many of the main attractions are essentially right along the road along the bay, but the tram circles inland to other  things to see.  What many people don't know unless they study the area is that Flagler was responsible for much of this town. Flagler, in a very condensed summary of who he was, was at the time one of the richest men in America and one of his things was to build luxury hotels for the wealthy people of the North, principally in the New York City area. Of course at the time, the only way to efficiently cover the distances was by train, and so he set about building a train line along the entire Eastern side of Fl, eventually stretching down to Key West. There were more commercial goals for that run, but for the moment, we can focus on one of the most luxurious hotels ever that was built in St Augustine. The building is still there and you can tour part of it, but  it is now Flagler College.   When the people came down, they wanted things to do and see, and so across the street another hotel was built and in it a Casino, and at one time it held the largest swimming pool in the country.  This hotel now is a museum (privately owned) and you can tour and spend hour on hour of seeing many of it's exhibits.

Down the road and around the corner is a newer attraction, the St Augustiner wineery. Again, not widely known is that Fla has unique grape that essentially will grow only in the Fla area, and in fact there are many wineeries around the state. But his is one, and this winery has a great tasting room with wine tasinting on the hour. Then there is the rooftop cafe at the winery.. A great place to have a snack or lunch!

This might conclude the tour.. but we haven't talked about getting to the beach for a day yet, or another favorite vacation item.. Shopping. Threre are several blocks of botiques of all type: Art, jewlery, and clothing.

St Augustine as a Vacation Hub

It can be that. Some people like to settle into one hotel, condo, time share etc and move out and return, while others prefer to change venues over the typical one or two week vacation. Those wishing to make it a hub can do that.. so what is within an easy drive?

In terms of activity, there's plenty of golfing  in the St Augustine area. But in terms of attraction, the famous NASCAR speedway at Daytona Beach is a short drive. Not only is Daytona Beach known for the speedway, but as the name say, for the beach itself. If you are a motorcyclist, you also know it for Bike Week.. and if you are not a cyclist, we suggest you stay away as the crowds as tremendous..

Just a tad to the north is Jacksonville, and there's so much to stay about Jacksonsville, FL that if we started a review of this location, this post would go on forever.

As  we check our word count for this post, we see we are well over the nominal 500-700 words and as we wish to keep on target for St Augustine Fl as an East Coast Vacation destination, we'll conclude this post and invite you to see another nearby one,  Amelia Island. Nearby, but 1000% different Enjoy, bookmark, and return often.