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The Backyard Tourist

If you’re lucky enough to live in the Lowcountry, every day is a vacation waiting to happen. Follow us over the river and through the marsh…

Greetings from Sunny St. Augustine (Part II)

Wednesday, 08 June 2011 14:07

The Backyard Tourist Sails on Stranger Tides: Food, drink and music in America’s Oldest City

augustine-santa-maria-vertical Editor’s note: To read Part I, go here.

The words are etched on the window in the shape of a giant eye in bold block print: FOR SCENIC VIEW PRESS NOSE HERE. It’s a postcard spring day on St. George Street, St. Augustine’s pedestrian promenade of shops, bars, restaurants, museums, street performers, and local color. This is the heartbeat of the tourist trade, the main vein. St. George splits the north end of the historic district running from the City Gates southward eventually spilling out in the shadow of the magnificent Cathedral Basilica onto the Plaza de la Constitución.

Classics in the Cathedral

Tuesday, 24 May 2011 16:23

The St. Augustine Music Festival returns to the Basilica

Music is ubiquitous in St. Augustine. Stroll St. George Street in the afternoons and evenings and the sound of live music is as thick as the scent of summer jasmine. Live entertainment is a given in the bars, restaurants, cafes and clubs. Street performers stake out prime spots to take advantage of maximum pedestrian exposure. On any given night it’s possible to see and hear just about anything on or off the street. On a recent visit I happened by a trio of dreadlocked surf punks playing an old Clash tune on lute, bongos and the didgeridoo. Seriously, the didgeridoo. It was a uniquely twisted interpretation of Train In Vain I’m sure Joe Strummer would have appreciated.

Greetings from Sunny St. Augustine

Tuesday, 24 May 2011 16:19

The Backyard Tourist Sails on Stranger Tides

st-augustine-lion-tower The way I figure it, St. Augustine owes a debt of gratitude to the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Let’s face it: if things had worked out well here for the Spanish settlement of Santa Elena on Parris Island, St. Augustine might just be another condo-rina on the Intracoastal Waterway and things might be a bit more…quirky around here.

View From The Bluff, 40 Years Later

Wednesday, 27 April 2011 10:00

open-land-truse-staff Entering its fifth decade, The Beaufort County Open Land Trust goes beyond preserving the view… and beyond Beaufort County.

Forty years ago a trio of Beaufort residents heard about a plan to develop the bluff at the bend of the river on Bay Street. In the boom market of the last decade this prime piece of real estate – arguably the most valuable in the city – would certainly have fetched millions. In 1971 John Trask, Jr., Marguerite Broz and Betty Waskiewicz pooled their resources and borrowed five grand to secure the view and create the first organization of its kind in the state. Over the years the Open Land Trust has been instrumental in the preservation of much more than just views.

Strolling the Slow Lane

Wednesday, 13 April 2011 08:28

The Backyard Tourist rediscovers Bluffton

bluffton-calhoun-allen (a continuing series in partnership with CityTrex.com)

Bluffton's dogged insistence upon survival is a two hundred year tale told with flood, fire, wind, rain, rice and cotton, slavery and sedition, war, boom, bust and boom again. Through it all the town of Bluffton has remained virtually unchanged in many ways until the recent explosion in development. Yet, the beating heart of whatever modern Bluffton may become, is Old Town, a square mile National Register Historic District and the key to the town's past and future.

– Excerpted from The Lowcountry Weekly, March 4, 2009

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