The next day we went into Jacksonville. Since it was a Sunday, we stopped by a church to speak to people. We met a lovely high church Anglican in sandals in a suburb. He told us that a good thing about his area was it got the least hurricanes of all of Florida.
That particular suburb was quite attractive:
It rains quite frequently in Florida, but unlike England, it usually comes and goes fairly quickly. We happened to get it in the middle of the day when going through the city of Jacksonville proper:
Despite that, we quite liked Jacksonville. We met some great people at the beach. It was pouring, but they chatted to us under their umbrella for a while. They were originally from Atlanta, Georgia, but strongly preferred living in Florida. They told us there are lots of tech jobs with the big attractions like Disney in Florida and that the pace of life was very pleasant.
Rainy Beach
The Sun Staring to Come Out Again
We really liked our hotel as well. It was only 65 dollars with tax, but the Days Inn Neptune Beach (which is right next to Jacksonville Beach) was superb for the price. It was comfortable, clean and had a full assortment of Boston Market ready meals (a nicer brand) and several kinds of wine for 6 dollars a bottle that I would have considered buying even in normal life i.e. not on a road trip budget (Viña Maipo, yum). I highly recommend this hotel and this beach if you are in Florida. It was a very affordable area with nice people and good service:
Days Inn Neptune Beach
Needless to say. we are strongly considering Jacksonville and quite liking Florida so far 🙂
Check out the video: