Places to go in Northeast Florida.

Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Amelia Island. 13 places worth the drive in this corner of Florida.

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13 places

Beaches

Fort Clinch State Park

Fernandina Beach, FL · Northeast Florida

A red-brick Civil War fort sits at the northern tip of Amelia Island, its ramparts looking out over the channel where the Amelia River meets Cumberland Sound. Walk the granite sallyport into the courtyard on the first weekend of any month and costumed soldiers are drilling, cooking, and standing watch as if it were 1864. Past the walls, a long oak-shaded loop runs out to wide Atlantic beach where the hard sand gives up shark teeth and the fishing pier draws regulars at dawn.

Beaches

Anastasia State Park

St. Augustine, FL · Northeast Florida

Four miles of wide Atlantic beach back up against ancient dunes and the calm, kayak-friendly water of Salt Run, a short bridge from the oldest city in the country. Walk the maritime hammock trails to the Old Spanish Coquina Quarry, where workers cut the shellstone that built the Castillo de San Marcos in the 1670s. Surfers, windsurfers, and shorebirds share the sand, and the campground tucked under the live oaks puts you a few minutes from downtown St. Augustine.

Gardens & wildlife

Washington Oaks Gardens State Park

Palm Coast, FL · Northeast Florida

Louise Powis Young laid out these formal gardens in the 1930s on her winter estate, and the state has kept them in her hands' image: brick paths winding past reflecting ponds, rose beds, camellias, azaleas, and a citrus grove under a canopy of live oaks hung with Spanish moss. Cross A1A and the park's other face appears, a stretch of Atlantic shore where dark coquina rock ledges break the surf and fill with tide pools at low water. Between the two sits the Matanzas River, with short trails, fishing, and picnic tables under the hammock.

Attractions

Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens

Jacksonville, FL · Northeast Florida

On the banks of the Trout River north of downtown Jacksonville, 122 acres run together as zoo and botanical garden, so a stroller and a serious plant person both leave happy. Walk the Plains of East Africa for white rhino and giraffe you can hand-feed, then watch jaguars swim glass-side in Range of the Jaguar and Malayan tigers prowl the catwalks of Land of the Tiger. Save time for the gardens themselves, where Savanna Blooms and the bamboo plantings of the Asian section make the walk between exhibits the quiet payoff.

Attractions

St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park

St. Augustine, FL · Northeast Florida

Open since 1893, this is one of Florida's oldest attractions, and in 1993 it became the first place anywhere to display every living species of crocodilian, all 24 of them, from dwarf caimans to gharials. Maximo, a saltwater crocodile north of 15 feet and well past 1,000 pounds, holds court in his own pool while a boardwalk carries you over alligators basking below. Come spring, the canopy above those gator pools fills with a wild rookery of nesting egrets, herons, wood storks, and roseate spoonbills, which raise their chicks where no raccoon dares climb down.

Attractions

Lightner Museum

St. Augustine, FL · Northeast Florida

Henry Flagler built the Alcazar in 1888 to pamper railroad-era winter guests, and the Gilded Age never quite left: behind the twin red-domed towers sit three floors of Tiffany glass, mechanical music machines, and Victorian curiosities Otto Lightner spent a lifetime collecting. The old indoor swimming pool, once the largest in the country, is now Cafe Alcazar, where you eat lunch on the tiled floor of the deep end. Wander the palm-shaded courtyard and you start to see why the building is half the exhibit.

Attractions

St. Augustine Historic District

St. Augustine, FL · Northeast Florida

Founded by the Spanish in 1565, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the United States, and its historic district is where that long history is still underfoot. The coquina-walled Castillo de San Marcos guards the waterfront, pedestrian-only St. George Street threads past colonial-era buildings and the old city gates, and Henry Flagler's Gilded Age hotels turned Spanish Renaissance towers now anchor the skyline. It is a compact, walkable quarter where four and a half centuries of Spanish, British, and American chapters sit side by side.

Attractions

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument

St. Augustine, FL · Northeast Florida

Spain started this star fort in 1672, and 350 years later it still guards Matanzas Bay at the edge of St. Augustine. The walls are coquina, a soft shell stone that swallowed cannonballs instead of shattering, which is part of why the fort was never taken by force. Walk the gun deck for the bay view, drop into the cool vaulted rooms below, and time it for a cannon firing when the rangers run one.

Beaches

Little Talbot Island State Park

Jacksonville, FL · Northeast Florida

One of the last undeveloped barrier islands in Northeast Florida, Little Talbot puts five miles of open Atlantic sand between you and the nearest building. Sea oats hold the dune line and the Dune Ridge Trail loops back through maritime forest and salt marsh, where river otters, marsh rabbits, and migrating shorebirds outnumber the people. Come for a low-tide walk where the only tracks in the sand might be your own, and surfers and kayakers have the place largely to themselves.

Beaches

Big Talbot Island State Park

Jacksonville, FL · Northeast Florida

One of the last undeveloped barrier islands left in Florida, Big Talbot trades resort towers and boardwalks for raw shoreline. Follow the Black Rock Trail through coastal hammock and you arrive at Boneyard Beach, where salt-bleached skeletons of live oak and cedar lie toppled across the sand below an eroding bluff, the dark hardpan rock shelving into Nassau Sound. Come at low tide with a camera and patience, and you may have a mile of empty Atlantic coast to yourself.

Beaches

Jacksonville Beach

Jacksonville Beach, FL · Northeast Florida

This is the busy, salt-and-sunscreen heart of the Jacksonville Beaches, where a long concrete fishing pier juts into the Atlantic and surfers line up for the steady shore break beneath it. Wide hard-packed sand runs for miles, the SeaWalk Pavilion hosts free concerts and the Friday-night Deck the Chairs lights, and the bars and taco joints of the Beaches Town Center are a short walk back from the dunes. Come for a loud, easy beach day: paddle out, walk the pier for the pelicans and the anglers, then chase the sunset glow off the water with a cold drink in hand.

Beaches

St. Augustine Beach

St. Augustine Beach, FL · Northeast Florida

Anastasia Island's main beach runs wide and walkable below the 1,300-foot St. Johns County Ocean Pier, the kind of beach town where you can drive onto the sand, cast a line, or paddle out to the steady pier-break swells that draw Northeast Florida's surfers. Wednesday mornings the pier park fills with 60-some farmers market vendors, and summer nights bring the free Music by the Sea concerts and a splash park for the kids. It is the lively, easygoing counterpart to the old fort and cobblestones a few miles north, with surf shops, beachfront bars, and shrimp baskets within a barefoot walk of the water.

Beaches

Guana River Beach

Ponte Vedra Beach, FL · Northeast Florida

Between Ponte Vedra Beach and St. Augustine, A1A runs past one of the longest stretches of undeveloped Atlantic shore left in Florida, and Guana is the heart of it. Park along the highway, climb a weathered dune walkover through 30-foot dunes, and drop onto miles of coquina sand where the only footprints are usually your own and the surf does most of the talking. Behind the dunes sits the freshwater Guana River, held back by the old dam where the trails begin, so you can trade the empty ocean beach for quiet marsh paths whenever you want a change of view.