One Evening in Jacksonville, FL

February 20, 2019 8:22 AM

I'll be arriving in Jacksonville, FL on Sunday (2/24) around 4PM and I'm looking for something to do for the evening. Ideally this something would include art or music, and maybe something to eat while looking at the ocean.

Things I'm into: art (sculpture, graffiti, found, outsider, performance, surrealist), music, beer, shortish hikes, Cuban sandwiches.

Things I'm not into: golf, shopping, shellfish, actually touching the water.

Budget for dinner is $30-$40, not including drinks. I'll be staying in Fleming Island, so preferably nothing too far from my final destination.

Thanks!

posted by sacrifix to Travel & Transportation around Jacksonville, FL (3 answers total)

Best answer: This is a tricky one, in part because Fleming Island is pretty far from the beach, so oceanside activities are gonna require at least a 45 minute drive or so... are you coming in to the airport at 4, and planning on going to Fleming Island to drop stuff off before heading out again (which will be about an hour drive from JAX), or would you proceed to a hangout spot straight from the airport?

In terms of hiking, Black Creek Park down on the south end of Fleming is a nice little trail with a great payoff on the creek itself. A few miles further down 17, then east on 16, is the Bayard Conservation Area, which is also really beautiful and has a number of great trails, including a pretty spectacular one that terminates on the river. Depending on your timing though it may be way too dark to actually do any of this.

Fleming Island itself is pretty low on culture... if you want good food/cool beer/art/etc. you're going to have to travel. I'm down in St. Augustine; we're about 45 minutes away and could satisfy most or all of those requirements. If you're willing to make that drive let me know and I can give you some specific recommendations. Jax folks may have better ideas than me but my immediate thought, given that you're in Fleming Island, would be to head 20 minutes or so north (traffic notwithstanding) up past Orange Park in to the Five Points/Riverside area of Jacksonville, which has a pretty good density of great restaurants and breweries and art galleries and what have you.
posted by saladin at 10:38 AM on February 20, 2019

The art museum in downtown Jacksonville is surprisingly excellent for a small town!
posted by TheCoug at 7:40 AM on February 21, 2019

Response by poster: I would love to go to the art museum, but it closes at 5 :(

Thanks for the suggestions, saladin. I'll probably end up checking out Five Points as the amount of driving necessary to look at the ocean for an hour or two is probably not worth it.

If anyone has any specific suggestions for dinner/drinks/etc in Five Points, please let me know.
posted by sacrifix at 11:37 AM on February 21, 2019