17 Reasons Not to Move to St. Augustine, Florida (Voted by locals!)

There are many places in the United States that you have the opportunity to move to. Every place has its own intriguing qualities, but they also have things to look out for.

Living in a Historic City causes much unwanted attention and inconvenient everyday necessities. St. Augustine, Florida is a historic city that seems great, but has more issues when living there, instead of visiting. This city has you see things that you shouldn’t see in your yard.

The historic city has different qualities that are needed to know before moving down to St. Augustine, Fl. Knowing the things that it possesses can make or break your decision.

On Their Own Time

Every store has an opening time set every day. One would have the expectation of making it known to open at the stated time. Unfortunately, that is not the case in St. Augustine, Fl. When a store says that they are opening up at 10:00 am, they really open up between 10:15 to 10:30.

They run on their own time and don’t care to see what is in store for them. The normal time for someone to show up to something in St. Augustine is about fifteen minutes late. Most people are taught to be on-time for events or gatherings or there will be repercussions, not so in St. Augustine.

Unwelcomed Visits

St. Augustine is a beautiful place to be, but when you post on social media, it gets attention. The attention comes from friends and family that do not live in the area. They feel and believe they need to experience what is there. Wanting to experience something leads to random trips.

These trips are wanted by the people going to them, but not always the ones they are coming to. When they do come and visit, you play the tour guide. As the tour guide, you go through the city a lot of the time repeating the same things over and over. As the trip starts, it is about the people visiting the city and a bonus visiting you.

400 years of History

The city of St. Augustine is a town with 400 plus years of history in it. History is a great thing to learn and cherish, but when you don’t know the answers that friends, family, and kids are asking you, it can get annoying. How are you supposed to know all the answers when you just live there? The answers come from history buffs.

The History ranges from the time that the Spanish colonized there to the civil war and to now. History has things and ships being pulled from the sea and older artifacts being found in restored homes. People in America barely pay attention to pass a history class in school. How would the History of the city that one is living in be any different?

Endless Sunshine

In the state of Florida, there is too much sun. That is why they call the state the, Sunshine State. The sun is always out and about during the year. There is not wintertime or snow. In the right season, there is rain.

The sun becomes blinding to you every day. Not only is it bright, but reflects off any surface of the water it can touch. This makes you squint your eyes more times than not. This can become extremely troublesome when you are watching little ones for the day at the pool or at the beach.

Brick Roads

Back 400 years ago the people that lived here did not have any cement or concrete to pave their roads and sidewalks with. Instead, they used bricks to create roads. There are some very beautiful types of brick roads. These roads are over many years old and have deteriorated over time. The bricks have developed cracks and holes that easily twist your ankles.

The most common place to find brick roads in St. Augustine is on St. George Street. This street is known to be a very popular road to walk on. This is for the many shops and restaurants that you pass by. The many distracting things that your eyes catch along the walk make it easier for your feet to fall into a hole.

Humidity and Hot Weather

The humidity is known to be unbearable for many people. The moisture in the air doesn’t help in hot air and makes you sweat. The sweat does not just dry up, it sticks to you for hours due to the humidity.

For women, when you want to look nice or cute and have your makeup and hair done, that can become a disaster. With the humidity and the heat, your makeup will melt off your face in the Spring and Summer. The time and effort that one puts into one makeup can come down in a matter of minutes.

Insane Traffic

There are different levels of traffic around the United States. For example, New York traffic is one of the worst in the country. St. Augustine has a place up there as well. The traffic in St. Augustine has more issues of tourism than getting from one place to another.

This town is full of tourism and has different styles of transportation. For example, Horse-drawn carriage and trollies. Horse-drawn carriages are used for tourists to enjoy the ride through the city. The thing is that they don’t have a current way to go, but where ever they want. Making traffic terrible if stuck behind them. Trollies are ways many people can catch a ride to explore the city and get history facts. The trollies are long to contain many people along for the ride. They also stop in various different places where people have the opportunity to get off and explore the area on foot.

Restaurants

Everyone loves to go to restaurants once in a while, but in St. Augustine, there are so many unique restaurants to try. for example, PK’s Roosevelt Room. These places may be extravagant and fun to go to, but there are too many options for people. You want to go out all the time to fancy places to eat when it can be cheaper to eat at home with your family. Instead of experiencing a home-cooked meal, you are wasting your money on food you may not like.

Historical Events and Updates

Living in a Historic City has points of events to celebrate what we are living in. It can be cool to experience the fun, but there is always a downside. This happens every month and there are daily rituals that the city goes through every day to appeal to the masses. There have been times where people will see people in soldier costumes driving by their front porch. These events have the ability to bring more tourists to the city and are full of loud parties.

There is also the issue of the Historical Updates. With the updates, there are always things that are completely unrelated to your daily life. You hear stories of how one of the walls on the Castillo de San Marcos fort has a new hole in it that wasn’t there before. Some of the updates are interesting and can be useful, but overall completely unneeded.

Hurricane Season

In Florida, there is always the problem of Hurricane season. In this time it can become very tragic for many people. This natural disaster has the ability to ruin people’s lives, destroy homes, flood cities, and sometimes kill innocent people. A hurricane is a tropical cyclone that is categorized as a low-pressure level, strong winds, low-level atmospheric circulation, and can produce thunderstorms and heavy rain. These happen between the months of the beginning of June to the end of November.

Ghost Attraction

One of the many things that St. Augustine is known for besides the history is the ghosts behind it. There have been many ghost sightings in this town. From all the stories and sights they have created is to be some sort of attraction. The stories and findings have a bone-chilling thought about them, but making it an attraction takes away part of the scare and fun. The company that does this ghost tour creates entertainment with the history behind it. These tours make it difficult to just enjoy the place without hearing how someone died in a certain place because of something.

The Bridge of Lions

The Bridge of Lions is the pass to get from downtown St. Augustine to Anastasia Island. This bridge goes over the Harbor that the city oversees. This sounds and looks beautiful, but is never kept on schedule. Whenever you cross the bridge it seems that the draw bridge is always up. From being up causes even more traffic than there already is. Stopping and waiting for a boat to pass under or waiting for the bridge to lower takes forever.

Tourist Town

Looking for a nice place to settle that is not that busy and crazy, well not all the time in St. Augustine. St. Augustine is a tourist town creating attractions and events for people to come and visit. There is never a familiar face to be found ever. Having many different people come in visit creates many difficulties for the locals to make the town acceptable to “Spend the Weekend.”

For tourists, they always seem to ask what this means and take away from your own enjoyable day. They need a tour guide and directions to certain places downtown. Being a local means you know exactly where everything is all the time when sometimes you don’t know the answer.

Cyclists

Many people don’t see the problem with cyclists, but there is a problem when they don’t have their own lane. Cyclists have free reign over the roads. It can be extremely frustrating driving behind a cyclist at any point in the day. there has been stats that just under 1000 cyclists were killed by motor vehicles in 2019. Space, where they have free reign of the road and the deaths a year, doesn’t add up well for this city.

No Parking

A place with crazy traffic and nonstop tourism equals little to no parking. Parking is a very hard thing to come by in many places. There are designated parking spots, free parking, and paid parking. To explore the town, you have to drive there first if you are not in the downtown immediate area. Once getting past the traffic, finding a parking spot is a next thing to do. There never seems to be an open spot near the place you need to park.

There are not as many free parking spots there as well. Finding parking spots that you don’t have to pay for or have to be going to the attraction to park there is more difficult than it would seem. This causes many people to spend up to 30 minutes just parking.

Alligators are Everywhere

Alligators are Floridas’ dinosaur and are Florida’s state reptile. These creatures love to always appear when there is water nearby. In neighborhoods with retention ponds, there is most likely a gator in there. You might not be able to see them at first, but once the sun is out, they become more visible.

Living in a place with retention ponds is nice when it comes to rain, but for living with small animals and young children not so much. There have been many accidents where toddlers, small dogs, and cats get snatched by alligators when they are left unattended. Losing a kid, friend or pet is always heartbreaking to have, but to a gator that can roam free before an alligator exterminator comes, it is terrific.

A Big Bug Problem

If you don’t like bugs, do not move to St. Augustine, Florida. Florida is known to have big bugs due to the heat and humidity. For example, some of these bugs are the Giant Water, Palmetto Bug, Big Eye, and Cockroach. These bugs seem to find their way into your hair, bags, and home. There have been multiple instances where bugs have crawled out of the dishwasher.