How To: Avoid The Tourist Traps

By Glenn Judah
Published in December 2007 issue of Drift Magazine
Link: How To: Avoid The Tourist Traps

Locals will forever be outnumbered in a town whose major export is being “old.” Tourism in St. Augustine means that the historic district will be swarmed with sightseers and the streets congested with out-of-town traffic. This is not a question for Ripley’s to believe or not, but a fact.

It’s almost impossible to avoid 1,783,500 visitors in a county of just 123,135 residents. According to St. Johns County Tourism Facts, a study done in 2003, that number represents only tourists who stopped by for the day. The number of tourists increases to 4,088,600 when they decide to spend the night. All of these extra guests can be a blessing for the economy, but an annoyance in everyday life.

Some of the biggest headaches caused by tourism are traffic jams. Maneuvering the narrow one-way brick streets of downtown is tough enough without having to ride your brake behind trolley trains and horse-drawn carriages.

The roughest “Ancient City traffic jams” ensue on King Street, where tourists cruising to the lighthouse and locals rushing home from work do battle with the vehicles of tourism. Cordova Street, Sevilla Street and A1A form the Bermuda Triangle of traffic as they intersect King Street.

The jam begins with trolley train and horse drawn-carriage drivers bragging to tourists about the Ponce de Leon Hotel and ends with traffic parked all the way back on U.S. 1. This creates an unpublicized attraction that only St. Augustine residents know about: the awkward parade of locals piling up in their cars as they idle behind the clip-clop noises of a horse and buggy. Their red car brakes in the dark become the unofficial night of lights.

Extra traffic in the streets equals extra traffic on the sidewalks. The areas surrounding the downtown plaza and St. George Street receive masses of tourist foot travel. The crowded streets leave little buffer room and personal space. Back streets and side streets off the generic path can be used to get around the slowdowns caused by tourist congestion. Hypolita Street and Charlotte Street should be avoided, but go just a street over on Cuna Street or Spanish Street, and you can find routes hardly treaded on by theses vacationers.

Another hold-up to your daily life is providing directions to tourists. One second you are walking down the street thinking about your day; the next second you are being interrupted by a Dutch tourist on a personal quest for the oldest (insert-important-monument-here). This doesn’t help you because everything in St. Augustine is supposedly old. After wasting 10 minutes of your life by failing miserably to point out the direction of the Oldest Schoolhouse, you decide to flee before becoming the unofficial U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands in the form of a tour guide.

Luckily, St. Augustine does a good job of tagging most of its tourists. The catch and release program employed by the city allows locals to recognize tourists from 100 yards away. Try to keep a safe distance away from anyone wearing a bright orange or red train-shaped sticker when walking downtown. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to wear one yourself. That way you blend in, and if anyone asks you for directions, you don’t know, you are just as clueless as them.

Other routes should be avoided for their stop-you-in-your-tracks smells. Sevilla Street on a hot day gives off an aroma unique to the St. Augustine tourism industry. Many horse-drawn carriages make the corner of Valencia Street and Sevilla Street a spot of rest (but more importantly, a restroom).

When living in a town advertised as “The Nation’s Oldest City,” it’s hard to escape the sightseeing backlash. The tourist industry is not necessarily bad, but if you have lived here for more than a year, the ancient aspect loses its luster.