National Geographic Traveler Lists St. Augustine as a 2013 Must See Place!

St. Augustine, Fla., has made the list of National Geographic Traveler’s World’s Top 20 Places to See. The northeast Florida city, founded in 1565, is one of only four locations in the United States included on the international list.

National Geographic Traveler published the list this week. Other U.S. cities that made the list are Memphis, Tenn.; Missouri River Banks, MT; and Hudson Valley, N.Y.

By including St. Augustine on its list of must see places, National Geographic’s editors praised the city for maintaining the genuine “old Florida” culture and charm and preserving its nearly 450-year-old historical assets. Editors specifically recommended the 17th century Castillo de San Marcos, which stands sentry over the pristine Bayfront, and the Lightner Museum built by Henry Flagler in 1887 in the Spanish Renaissance style. Flagler College (the former Hotel Ponce de Leon, also built by Henry Flagler), which Princeton Review listed among the country’s most beautiful college campuses, was highlighted along with the pedestrian friendly Spanish colonial St. George Street and the St. Augustine Lighthouse, Florida’s first lighthouse.

This is not the first time National Geographic has recognized St. Augustine. In December 2011, National Geographic selected St. Augustine as one of the ten best places in the world to see holiday lights. St. Augustine’s popular Nights of Lights illuminates the city’s historic district with more than three million tiny white lights, providing a brilliant setting for the city’s holiday events each year from late November through January.

Located midway between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville, Florida’s Historic Coast features historic St. Augustine, the outstanding golf and seaside elegance of Ponte Vedra Beach, 42 miles of pristine Atlantic beaches – the same beaches that greeted Ponce de Leon on his historic 1513 discovery of the land he named La Florida – an area whose boundaries included what would later become the eastern United States.

For more information on events, activities, holiday getaways and vacation opportunities in St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & The Beaches, go to the Visitors and Convention Bureau website at  www.FloridasHistoricCoast.com , become a fan on FACEBOOK or call 1.800.653.2489.