At 4.5 hrs from Miami, St. Augustine would be considered too long of a drive for a day trip, but it’s definitely something that could be done with a one or two night stay. A good weekend escape or long weekend adventure. In our case, we had an expiring voucher for a free hotel night and it was the perfect excuse to go and do a mini road trip. On the way we stopped for at the Canaveral National Seashore to take a break, enjoy the scenery and quite possibly see manatees.
We got up very early, packed a picnic and hit the road Saturday morning. Not a lot of traffic, which was great. With the shorter days and limited daylight hours the early start would be ideal to get as much sightseeing in as we could that first day.
The Drive: We headed up the coast along Interstate 95 (lots of lanes and easy driving) just about the whole way; except for a bit of traffic due to an accident on the way back it was smooth sailing. If you want a more scenic route you could take the old US Highway 1 or even the seaside State Road A1A.
Manatee Viewing: Canaveral National Seashore
Tagged as one of the best places to see manatees, this park and its environs is a picturesque nature preserve with an inlet to the Intracoastal from the sea. Manatees, for unknown reasons, frequent this passage. Perhaps being creatures of habit, they return to the same spots, or perhaps they come to people-watch. Who knows? We went to the Manatee Observation Deck located next to the Haulover Canal Bridge (north of Merritt Island) and stopped for a short while and saw at least half a dozen manatees.
We were fortunate to meet a nice local resident who was there taking pictures with his large zoom lens. He took the time to explain to us some of the manatees’ behavior and what to watch for. Typically, you would see circles being formed on the surface of the water as the manatee kicked up with its tail to swim along. He told us to spot 10-15 feet in front of those circles for the manatee to come up to the surface from time to time.
Sure enough, this was true to form and we saw them coming along the inlet and as we watched you’d see the little snout come out of the water for a breath. Sometimes we’d see more of the manatee, but unlike the clear water at Crystal River, this water was murky and once the manatee was under, we could no longer see its shape. We were not sure if that was always the case here.
Either way, we were happy to see a few manatees and didn’t want to spend too much time hanging out before getting back on the road to go and explore America’s oldest city, St. Augustine!
Read about it in our post:
St. Augustine, Florida: Things to See and Do (to Make the Most of Your Weekender Trip)