ST AUGUSTINE FLORIDA // Hidden Gems & the BEST BEACH! Van Life Vlog

We're Brian and Crystal and this is Von Holla adventures. For the past nine months we've been living in our van Beatrice and documenting our travels on our sea America tour. We started at the Northwest tip of Washington and got all the way to the southernmost tip in the Florida Keys. Now we're landing in St. Augustine, the oldest city in the U S Good morning everyone. We are in St. Augustine and we've been here for a few days. We've been working. We've been waiting to take you along to actually go out and see all the sites and eat all the delicious food. So that's, we're going to be doing today. We're going to show you a little bit more of the hidden gems, some of the less touristy spots because we think you can find those pretty much anywhere on YouTube. If you search must see places, but we're just going to go with some local suggestions. And our first stop is actually where we stayed last night. And it's gorgeous. So we are smack dab in the middle of Butler beach and Crescent beach. St. Augustine is more of the popular beach. Uh, we tend to like to go to the not as popular beaches. So Butler beach is just a little more chill. It's great over here. Check it out. Oh yeah. And you can drive on the beach here too. If we had four wheel drive, we could do that. One of the things we've seen a lot of here is jellyfish. They are all over the beach. So you've got to be careful if you're walking barefoot, but it's pretty cool to see them everywhere. I think with this beach, you could kind of just keep walking and walking and walking because all the beaches connect to each other. Yeah. It's just one big beach. Yeah. It's beautiful. Really like to stay here all day, but uh, we got to show you the rest of the town. So this is one of the best things about van life is waking up to places like this. There's just nothing that really beats it. And when Brian and I first started van life, or actually before we did, one of the ways we decided to do it is we were in a beach on the Oregon coast and we're like, wouldn't it be nice just to just to sleep here and not have to leave and just leave whenever we wanted. That's when we decided van life was for us. The second stop on our St. Augustine tour today is the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum. They believe it was finished building in 1874 so it's a really old lighthouse. So the St. Augustine Lighthouse has 219 steps and that includes eight landings so you can rest on the way up. It's not just a lighthouse that's here. It's also home to some world war two barracks, a cafe, some coast guard barracks and um, some beautiful greens. What? It has a maritime museum is what Brian I think is trying to say and just a lot of history because St. Augustine is so old. There's a lot of history. And so we were actually looking up some history to share with you all and it is quite extensive so we won't go over all of it. This is actually the nation's oldest port and the lighthouse used to be, the St. Augustine Lighthouse used to be 350 yards closer to the ocean, but then it fell in. Each lighthouse in the country is distinct and look at it signaling. Lighthouses rhythmically flash or eclipse their lights to provide an identification signal. This along with the way they are painted creates a specific ID unique to each one and helps those at sea pinpoint exactly where they are. One of the most distinct characteristics of the St. Augustine Lighthouse is it's striped pattern and red top. So this is kind of bananas. They had to be in pretty good shape. The keeper of the lighthouse used to have to take this bucket which held five gallons of oil and do it every about two and a half hours. They would have to keep the oil in here. Then take this giant thing, which is super heavy and take it up the 219 stairs every two and a half hours. Every night. That's pretty amazing. I'd like to meet this man. All right, here we go. So the lighthouse has a Coquina and shell base and the rest of it is made out of brick and metal and it's the city's oldest brick structure. We have our smoothies feeling pretty good and now we're going to town. When coming to St. Augustine, we highly suggest leaving the historic old town area of St. Augustine and actually spending some time over on Anastasia Island. It's pretty chill over here. It seems it's just, it's not so full of crowds because St. Augustine can get pretty packed. St. Augustine has RV parking lot, which is just a short walk into the main tourist area I guess. And it's free up until 10 PM. You can also park here overnight. So once it hits 10 PM, you need to start paying for parking. It's only $35 per night. It does say no camping. We have heard of a couple of van lifers camping overnight. We haven't risked it, but it is a pretty cool option. After you park at the RV park, just about a 10 minute walk into the downtown historic area. And it's beautiful too cause there's lots of gorgeous old, old houses here too. So it's definitely worth the walk. We are at the St. Photius National Greek Orthodox shrine. I don't know if you all can hear this, but the audio in here is amazing. It's just incredible. It's one of the lesser known places here in St. Augustine, but it's definitely worth a trip if you're into religious history or just history of St. Augustine in general. As you notice when you're walking down St. George street, you notice that almost every building is on the historical marker dating back to 1700s. If you're into clothing and costumes, this place is awesome. It's also right off of St. George street and there's period pieces from like 1500s through the 1700s. It's awesome. In the former Spanish port, piracy was a huge concern. So they built this street, which is the narrowest street in the entire country at only seven feet wide. Legend says they made it this wide because it was wide enough for two men to stand next to each other while holding a chest of gold. That way they could get from the bay to the bank safely without having room for any horse drawn carriages to be able to steal the gold. The name of this street is treasury street. So check it out while you're going through St. George. It passes right along the way. I'm thirsty. Yeah, I'm hungry. And St. Augustine has some of the best food and they have so many different plant-based options. Yeah. There's so many to choose from. What are we going to do? I don't know yet. We're going to have to check our phones. We'll see you there. Okay. Decision made. We're going to go to the place called the Floridian. Vegan friendly, gluten-free friendly. I was so excited. So one of the reasons we chose this restaurant is because they have a ton of salads, but these aren't just like the regular, I don't know. I feel like most restaurants when it comes to vegan food, the salads are just like, but here they're absolutely delicious. So I got blackened tempeh and it's a kale Cobb salad vegan. Let's try this bad boy. Most places don't do tempeh or tofu. Very good. Brian and I don't always get like faux meats or whatever, but this blackened tempeh is. I am loving this salad. It's got strawberries, sweet potatoes, beets, candied pecans, and an amazing citrus rosemary dressing. Just dump the whole thing on there. I'm going to first bite into this tempeh because it is amazing. Delicious lunch. Yeah. I love that place. And now for dessert. So this place is called Hippo. It's a gourmet popsicle joint. It's all fresh ingredients, vegetables and fruits and all kinds of different things. This is so good. Suddenly, the world I used to know, I see it differently. You woke me from a dream, now here's reality. Baby, baby, you are really hurting me. So this is one of few love trees. And what it is, it's an Oak tree with a palm tree growing out of it. And apparently if you kiss underneath it, it gives you good luck. It seals your fate with your lover. So we're going to give it a try. I feel ignited. It feels pretty good. I think it works. One of the best things about having a van is you can go back to it. I think we mentioned this in our Key West video too, but you can use the restroom and you can refresh, take a little quick break and then go back out again. Then you don't have to pay for a hotel. That's pretty awesome. So we took a really short 15 minute power nap, kind of slept, more or less just snuggled. Another one of the hidden gems that you're not going to like see when you Google or get on the internet is the houses and the neighborhoods. They're absolutely incredible. And the churches here are incredible. So where we're going right now is the Lightner museum. While it is fairly well known, every single local we talked to told us to go here. The Lightner museum occupied what once was the Alcazar hotel. A major attraction of the hotel was its indoor entertainment and recreational facilities. The Alcazar hotel sadly closed during the depression, but was bought in 1947 by a man named Otto C. Lightner to exhibit his turn of the century collection of fine and decorative art. The Lightner museum opened two years later. One of the most distinct and fascinating aspects to the museum is what used to be the largest indoor pool in the U S. This pool is now a museum cafe, which you can dine at and envision what it used to be like to swim in such a gorgeous structure. Another interesting section of the museum is what once was the bath house, including the steam rooms, massage parlor, and sulfur baths. So the Lightner museum, that was pretty cool. Some highlights for me were the pool, the Russian bath house and the showers. I love all that kind of stuff. Hot springs and pools and saunas and stuff. I'm not really an art guy, so it's like whatever, but, um, just really cool architecture inside there and furniture. And it's worth checking out. I would check it out. So it was an okay museum. I would not put it at the top of my list. I would not put this as a must see. It was interesting. I thought the coolest thing was actually seeing the old photos of the pool. If the pool is actually in there, I think it would be super awesome. There were some really cool paintings. A lot of the stuff is in there is from the late 1800s. If you're into history, it's worth checking out, but I don't think it's a must. So while we were eating lunch earlier today, one of the locals said to come to the Dog Rose Brewing Company. So we're going to check it out. Apparently it's where all the locals come. That's good beer. Uncle what's his face? What's it called? Well, that was great beer. It's a good recommendation from, um, dude at the Floridian. I did try the beer. I don't drink beer, but it was like really good. That's saying a lot. Cause she, she pretty much hates beer. Then we're going to take you to a really awesome taco joint. Yeah. Well, we finally made it here to Osprey tacos. And this place is amazing cause they have great vegan options for tacos. And they have great guacamole and their salsa is on point. These tacos are no joke. There's some of the best vegan tacos we've had in the entire country. Wouldn't you say? Oh yeah. These are amazing. So I got the San Diego vegan. And so it has like a soy protein with radishes and lime and a salsa verde sauce and these like crispy onions. I got the herbivore special of the day and it's got blistered shishito peppers, pickled onions and some other goodness. It's really good. The San Diego ones are the best. They're the meatiest and biggest. Well that was delicious. It's actually the third time we've been here. So we are headed back to where we started the day, the beach. We're already back at the beach. Brian is eating his after dinner snack and we're making use of, this table's like been super awesome. If you didn't watch our video yet about how to make this outdoor table, there's going to be a link somewhere on the screen. This is a sweet little spot. We just get to hang out by our van. All the things we've, of all the things we've seen, I think like for the past couple of days, I would say the huge highlights for me have been one, the food in St. Augustine is amazing. They have great vegan food. Excellent vegan food. Yeah. And actually this beach and the beach, this beach is awesome. Crescent, Crescent beach and Butler beach are the best. Yeah. Big beaches. You can drive on them. And yeah, this is cool. Mine's at the West coast. Yeah. And they're not super crowded and full of tourists. Oh, and I guess the architecture is pretty rad too. Yeah. Besides that, it makes me feel like you're in Europe a little bit, you know, it's cool. If I was going to do it again, I'm curious what you would say, but like I just go to the beach, beach, maybe spend one day in town, eat good food, but just chill here. Anyways, that's the video. Subscribe. If you'd like this video, give us a like. We appreciate it. And we'll catch you all next week. And our journeys are taking us up North, up the East coast. Yeah, definitely more hiking. So anyways, catch you later, everybody.