The First Coast Run

The First Coast is the corner of Florida nearest Georgia, named for being settled first and visited, by the standards of the state, last. This route runs north to south, Amelia Island through Jacksonville to Ponte Vedra Beach, wants three nights, and is best in spring or fall, when the water is warm and the summer families are back in school.

Start on the barrier island at the very top of the state, where the Victorian shrimping town of Fernandina Beach holds fifty blocks of nineteenth century architecture and a working harbor. Walk the historic district in the morning, take the thirteen miles of beach in the afternoon, and sleep either downtown among the gingerbread or south along the dunes at the resorts under the live oaks. Dinner downtown, where the shrimp came off a boat you can see from the table.

Spend the middle day in the river city, which visitors skip and residents defend. The wide St. Johns bends through the middle of town, the historic neighborhoods of Riverside and Avondale hold the leafy streets and the good lunch rooms, and the museums along the riverbank earn an unhurried afternoon. It is a working city rather than a resort, which after two beach towns is exactly the right seasoning.

End on the quiet resort stretch south of the city, where the beach runs wide and firm and the golf is world business, since the tour keeps its headquarters here and its stadium course, the one with the island green everyone has seen on television, receives visitors year round. Play it if your game can stand the seventeenth, watch others try if it cannot, and take the last evening on the beach with the Atlantic doing its work. The First Coast has been keeping this corner quiet for four hundred years, and it would appreciate your discretion.