Things to do in Jacksonville

Neighborhood · Just west of downtown, on the St. Johns

The city's best-preserved historic district — Prairie School and Tudor Revival houses under live oaks, with Five Points and King Street as its two walkable commercial strips.

Local tip: The Riverside Arts Market runs under the Fuller Warren Bridge every Saturday morning and is the single easiest way to meet people in your first month. Park at the Riverside Avenue end and walk in.

Culture · Riverside

A riverfront art museum whose real draw is behind it: two and a half acres of formal Italian and English gardens running down to the St. Johns, laid out in the 1900s.

Local tip: Free admission on Tuesday evenings. The Cummer Oak in the garden is over two hundred years old and predates almost everything else standing in the city.

Nature · Northeast, about 45 minutes from downtown

A state park beach strewn with the bleached, salt-cured skeletons of fallen live oaks and cedars washed out of the eroding bluff behind it.

Local tip: Go at low tide — at high tide most of the driftwood is in the water and the beach itself largely disappears. Check the tide table before you drive out, not after.

Landmark · Fort George Island, Timucuan Preserve

The oldest surviving plantation house in Florida, with twenty-five tabby slave cabins standing in an arc — one of the most intact quarters anywhere in the American South.

Local tip: Run by the National Park Service and free. Most newcomers never hear of it because it is at the end of a long dirt road on an island; go on a weekday morning and you may have the site to yourself.

Neighborhood · Southbank

A 1920s Mediterranean Revival shopping square built around a fountain and three bronze lions, with the city's oldest surviving cinema on one corner.

Local tip: It floods. The square sits low against Pottsburg Creek and standing water after a king tide or a heavy storm is routine — worth knowing if you are viewing a ground-floor flat here.

Food · At the mouth of the St. Johns, beside the naval station

A working shrimping village older than the United States, wedged between the jetties and the navy base, with a handful of unglamorous seafood shacks on the water.

Local tip: Take the St. Johns River Ferry across from Fort George — it is part of the JTA network, runs every half hour, and is the only vehicle ferry in this part of Florida.