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The historic town of St. Augustine also offers an abundance of outdoor adventures.
A compelling reason to visit the St. Augustine area is its topography. Unlike South Florida’s tropical shoreline, this part of the Florida coast is marked by large dunes and coastal marshes, massive live oaks and pinelands.
An especially dramatic and staggeringly beautiful aspect of the area is the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve, a 55,000-acre preserve that stretches about 30 miles north and 30 miles south of city, in St. Johns and Flagler counties. The preserve is a combination of inland ponds and marshes, live oak hammocks, beachfront and Florida scrub. Hikers can access nature trails through the preserve by heading north of the city on A1A, about 7 miles north of Vilano Beach, to the preserve’s entrance on Guana River Road.
Another way to experience the magical quality of this part of Florida is to head south from St. Augustine about 15 miles to the lonely outpost of the historic Fort Matanzas, site of the 1565 massacre of French Hugenots, for which the Matanzas River was named (“matanzas” means “slaughters” in Spanish). This simple coquina fort was built on the site in the mid-1700s to defend St. Augustine from the south against the British. The small outpost, accessible only by a park ferry, is haunting in its coastal isolation.
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