Down With The Ship In St. Augustine

It is inaccurate to dub St. Augustine, Florida as America's oldest city. Native American mound cities in the Upper Midwest and the Anasazi Pueblo cities of southwestern Colorado predate St. Augustine by several hundred years, as do Mexico City and the ancient Mayan city of Tikal further south. However, St. Augustine was the initial permanent, declared European village in what is now the United States, established only a little over seventy years after Columbus' historic voyage.

As you might expect, there is a lot in this area for the history buff, from the ruins of the original fort to the old town neighborhoods with colonial Spanish architecture and several museums. With an abundance of quaint, historic bed and breakfasts, you and your family will have no problem establishing a comfortable base of operations for your St. Augustine holiday exercusion.

It was essentially 1513 when explorer Ponce de Leon, then governor of what is now Puerto Rico, landed in the expanse, claiming it for King Ferdinand of Castile and Queen Isabella of Aragon as Spain was not an officially unified kingdom until 1516. Contrary to widely held myth, he was not searching for a "Fountain of Youth" but more material commodities such as gold, slaves and land. It was decades before a permanent community could be established.

Once you and your family are happily ensconced in one of St. Augustine's fine bed and breakfasts or beach rental accommodations, you will find enough activities and experiences to last a lifetime ranging from outdoor sports and educational trips to sheer entertainment and fun. Get started by seeing some of the area as the original inhabitants and early Spanish explorers saw it with St. Augustine Eco Tours, rated the number one experience among tourists. Traveling by kayak, you will see salt marshes and wetlands and may even encounter wild dolphins at play. And even though it's vacation time, you can keep the kids learning with Sheriff's Historical Tours, which takes you through 350 years of St. Augustine's history. Another piece of St. Augustine history worth seeing is El Castillo de San Marcos, an early Spanish military installation dating from the late 1600s.

Of course, the history of St. Augustine, similar to so many areas in the region, is intimately tied to the Golden Age of the Pirates of the Caribbean who commonly made forays up the Florida coast. Children of all ages will like to climb aboard the Black Raven for a sample of shipboard life on a 17th-Century privateer.

Budding herpetologists will enjoy seeing the last living relatives of the ancient dinosaurs up-close and personal at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm which contains much more than just alligators. This is just a small sample of what awaits you and your family in this fascinating town filled with sunshine most of the year.