What should I avoid in St. Augustine?

Most first visits go wrong on St. George Street at 1pm on a Saturday. The pedestrian strip between the City Gate and the Plaza de la Constitución packs shoulder to shoulder, and the air smells of waffle cones and sunscreen. Walk it before 9am instead, when the coquina walls still feel cool and the shop shutters are down. Skip the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse, where the admission fee buys a look at animatronic pupils in one small room; the González-Alvarez House, built in 1723, tells the colonial story far better with original walls and period furniture. Ripley's Believe It or Not on San Marco Avenue is a chain you can find in Gatlinburg or Myrtle Beach, though this one sits in the 1887 Castle Warden. The Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park charges over $20 for a sip of water that tastes faintly of sulfur, and to be fair, its 1565 settlement site and strutting peacocks are pleasant, but it is the most overpriced hour in St. Augustine.

Do not drive into downtown St. Augustine. Metered spaces around the Plaza fill by mid-morning, and the narrow one-way streets near Cathedral Place punish a wrong turn, so park once at the Historic Downtown Parking Facility on Castillo Drive, beside the Visitor Information Center, where a day currently costs roughly $20. From there, nearly every downtown sight sits within a 15-minute walk. Old Town Trolley Tours and the Red Train both sell hop-on passes for around $40 a head, and they crawl a loop you can walk in under an hour. Ignore the 'visitor information' kiosks on San Marco Avenue that push trolley bundles; they likely earn a commission on every sale. The Bridge of Lions drawbridge tends to open on the hour and half hour in daytime, which can strand you for 10 minutes on the Anastasia Island side. From Jacksonville International Airport, budget an hour on I-95, and know that no public transit links the airport to town.

The Castillo de San Marcos earns its place, but not at noon. The gun deck has no shade, and by midday the coquina throws heat back at you; arrive at opening, pay the roughly $15 adult fee, and you'll have the fort, finished in 1695, mostly to yourself for 30 minutes. Families do well in St. Augustine, which scores 8.3/10 for family friendliness (see the TTDI Family-Friendliness Index), but toddlers wilt on that deck by 11am. At 7am this morning the reading was already 24.1°C with 81% humidity. October king tides can push the Matanzas River over the seawall onto Avenida Menendez, so don't leave a car on the Bayfront overnight during a high-tide advisory. This week the Tedeschi Trucks Band (Friday 9 October) and The Avett Brothers (Sunday 11 October) play the St Augustine Amphitheatre, and A1A on Anastasia Island tends to jam for an hour before showtime.

Skip any St. George Street restaurant where a host waves a laminated menu at the sidewalk; you pay for the foot traffic there, not the cooking. Order Minorcan clam chowder instead. Minorcan settlers reached St. Augustine in 1777, and the datil pepper, small, fruity, and fierce, is tied to their kitchens. O'Steen's Restaurant on Anastasia Island serves fried shrimp and a peppery bowl of that chowder, though the Friday-night line can run 45 minutes. The Floridian on Cordova Street does fried green tomatoes and local shrimp a few blocks from the crowds. Book one ghost tour, not three, because the stories about Tolomato Cemetery and the Old Jail repeat across operators.