St. Augustine, Florida

St. Augustine, Florida, is where we stop on our way north from Miami. Sometimes, we stay and explore for several days. In the end, it is a stop on the way to somewhere north (or south), but not a place we could call home.

My favorite place to eat lunch is at Columbia Restaurant, allegedly Florida’s oldest restaurant (it started with the Ybor City location in Tampa, Florida, that opened in 1905), giving ourselves a break from the drive and the boredom I get from I-95. It is, in my opinion, a tourist restaurant, and we fit well as we are tourists. We are also sangria people, and with acceptable fish for my spousal unit, Columbia Restaurant is a happy place for us.

In house hunting last year, we frequently visited St. Augustine as one of the houses we viewed several times was fifteen minutes north, and the two other choices were only forty minutes away in Jacksonville. We liked the Jacksonville area but appreciated the architecture and history of this city, founded in 1565.

Much of St. Augustine gives me the similar feelings I found in New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah, like the alley below, only with a much deeper Spanish influence. History is all around, and you can spend many days touring through places like the Castillo de San Marcos, the cemeteries, or what I normally do—wander on foot to see and feel the city.

Even with the city’s character, this is still a small town (not even fifteen thousand people in the city limits itself per the latest census), and the historic area is always thick with tourists like us. Even though my photos have no people in them, trust me, they are there.

The vibe downtown St. Augustine is very similar to that of Key West. I could not see us living there or even fifteen miles away in a gated community. We spent ten years in Key West, and with transient auto traffic, daily life many times is a chore.

At least in Key West, I could use my bicycle to do grocery shopping. Downtown St. Augustine, like much of the United States, would require a car to reach a grocery store of any size, and at that point in our search, I was leaning toward city life with no car. I currently have no vehicle in Istanbul, and it’s a freeing experience.

As always, we searched for a place to live close to water. The intercoastal runs along the Matanzas River and the local marinas and anchorage areas are pleasant. As far as the sailboat, she would be very happy here, as would her captain, as long as he was on the water. (No, that isn’t our boat.)

All in all, the city was a possible choice in the beginning, yet only a helpful diversion in helping us to make the ultimate decision of where to move at the end. One negative for us other than the tourists? The weather. Winter is not much warmer than in Charleston (well, that’s his opinion), where we lived previously. The spousal unit wanted to be warm all year round (read that to mean sweltering hot), and neither Jacksonville nor St. Augustine would give him what he wanted when the average daily high in the winter is in the mid-60s. There is little diversity, which we both need to be happy in a city.

Because of our plans, we needed to be reasonably close to a large airline hub where we could come and go without the extra short hop to a smaller city. St. Augustine may be close to Jacksonville, but I needed it to be close to Atlanta or Miami for this to work for us.

In the end, it was a no-go.

St. Augustine is a great place to visit, but it ended up being too small and too far from a major airport for either of us to call home. But we’ll be back the next time we need a decent sangria on our way north.