About 40 miles up the coast from St. Augustine, Jacksonville is the largest city in the continental United States by land area, thanks to a 1968 merger with its county, so it feels more like a set of neighborhoods than one dense downtown. About a million people live here along the St. Johns River, with beaches just east at Jacksonville Beach and Neptune Beach. Visitors go to the pier, the Cummer Museum, the zoo and Kingsley Plantation, and locals love the weekly Riverside Arts Market. Riverside, Avondale and San Marco are the charming older neighborhoods, and Amelia Island is close by.
Costs are near the national average, which makes it affordable for a large coastal city, and the housing market is flat. Summers are hot, humid and stormy, hurricane season runs June through November, and rip currents are a beach danger. Most tourist areas are safe, though parts of downtown after events and some Northwest and Eastside neighborhoods call for caution. Expect to drive everywhere.
