St Augustine – Random Tourist Traps

I hadn’t ever heard of St Augustine until someone mentioned it when I talked about my desire to do some travel through Savannah and Charleston… I have no idea who it was, I’m pretty sure it was while I was at WordCamp San Francisco, but the rest is a blank. But I must have filed the idea away, because when I started looking at it to see what its story was, I couldn’t resist… So, when I was cooking up a week in the South, St Augustine was first on the list…

On my first day there I walked into town, and started at a place called the Welcome Center… and well, it wasn’t what I expected. It SOUNDS like it’s the local visitor centre… come in, look around grab brochures, ask a few questions and move on… but this one was all about getting you onto one of the Old Town trolley tours and/or into one of their random tourist traps. I felt sold to, and came out a little ticked. That’s the choleric personality for you… hates feeling controlled or manipulated… SO, I didn’t buy a trolley ticket, preferring to walk everywhere, but I did follow my nose to their most visited attraction, the Old Jail.

The random tourist trap of the St Augustine History Museum, Old Jail, and the Old Store were in the end, worth checking out, though the Museum left a fair amount to be desired the focus there being the tacky junk in the souvenir shop. However, the exhibits in the Jail and Store were interesting enough, and the tour guides were entertaining, and knowledgable.

So, without further ado, here’s a gallery of pix from the Old Jail, and the Oldest Store Museum Experience…