Start from 83 curated places around Jacksonville, FL, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Town Hall
A two-time James Beard nominee's American kitchen on San Marco Square — California-inspired produce-driven menu, an open kitchen at the back, and an ingredient sourcing list that reads like a Bay Area benchmark. The San Marco dinner reservation locals defend hardest.
bb's Restaurant + Bar
A glassed-in San Marco room with a serious dessert program — pastry counter at the entrance, brunch through dinner service, and the kind of broad American menu that satisfies a six-person table where no two people want the same thing. Locals' default San Marco Sunday brunch.
Trails & outdoors
Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park
A 450-acre Atlantic-coast county park north of Mayport — 1.5 miles of beach, a 60-acre freshwater lake, and over 20 miles of hiking and mountain-bike trails. The Northeast Florida hiker's default and the surfer's break at The Poles.
Theodore Roosevelt Area - Timucuan Preserve
A 600-acre preserved-marsh-and-hammock unit of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, east of the Mayport ferry — six miles of unpaved trails, a Spanish-moss-canopied loop, and the salt-marsh boardwalk that ends at the Round Marsh overlook. The locals' under-known half-day hike.
Things to do
Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens
A 1958 art museum on the St. Johns River in Riverside with an under-the-radar permanent collection and three formal gardens descending to the river — one Italian, one English, one moss-canopied. The Jax cultural anchor and the best museum-and-garden combination in Florida.
MOCA Jacksonville
The Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville — five floors in a converted 1931 art-deco bank in Hemming Plaza, with a rotating contemporary-art schedule and a young-creative downtown energy. The downtown indoor afternoon move.
Landmarks & sights
Friendship Fountain
On the Southbank Riverwalk facing downtown — a 1965 fountain that was once the largest of its kind in the world, with a 200-foot-high spray and color-changing lights at night. The Jacksonville-skyline-and-fountain photo every local has taken on a first-date evening walk.
Treaty Oak
A 250-plus-year-old live oak in Jessie Ball duPont Park near San Marco — 70-foot canopy spread, gnarled root system, and the tree a local newspaper editor saved from developers in 1934 by inventing the legend that Timucua and Spanish chiefs signed a treaty under it. The myth saved a real tree.