Scott and I recently had an opportunity to spend a week in our condo in Jacksonville, to test out our future FIRE lifestyle. Check out part 1 of our FIRE trial which covers my effort to get work done there as well as all of our food discoveries.
What will we do for entertainment?
Coming from New York City, the bar is high for entertainment. Part of the allure of Jacksonville is that it is a slower pace but still a big metro area, so there are many things to do.
Scott loves sports, and unfortunately the minor league game of the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp v. the Biloxi Shuckers (I didn’t make these names up) was rainy, so we skipped it. It was Hawaiian shirt giveaway night too, so you know it must have rained hard enough for me to give up on a freebie! Scott did get to see some greyhound racing at Best Bet.
I also got my arts:
- Chris Redd (of Saturday Night Live) at The Comedy Zone
- Art Walk at Atlantic Beach, where artists line the sidewalks with their wares. On an earlier Jax trip, we hit the Art Walk for downtown Jax, and that was our 2016 holiday card.
We each stood next to our ‘first initial’ letter.
- Summer movie series at the Florida Theatre, an old historic theater in downtown Jacksonville. Tombstone was playing on the day we could attend. A Western is not my first choice for a movie, but it was fun watching a movie the old-fashioned way.
Where can I find a deal?
The gardens and river view at the Cummer Museum
One of my favorite things about New York City is that there is a price point for everyone, and there are flea markets everywhere. In our short week in Jacksonville, we found some fun deals:
- $5 first-run movies: Except for how disappointing the sequel to Jurassic World was, I was happy to find a spot for cheap movies
- Free Tuesday at the Cummer Museum: Like New York City, Jacksonville culture sites offer free admission during certain times, so we hit the art and gardens of the Cummer
- Free outdoor music: Scott picked up a great local newspaper outlining events around town. We hit St. Augustine beach for free outdoor music, on our night there it was a so-so 70’s/ 80’s cover band, but the beach was amazing.
- Vintage shopping: dangerously close to our condo is a clothing thrift shop, Dandelion, where I picked up a cute for work/ for evening floral top. There are over two dozen antique stores all over Jax, and I happily visited two of the larger ones, Avonlea and Fans & Stoves.
Can we fit in the beaches day-to-day?
Birds fighting over a fish at Atlantic Beach
One of my favorite features about Jacksonville are the variety of the beaches. On this trip, we hit four, and it was effortless to fit them in, despite the strong sun and heat midday. We just did our walks during sunrise or sunset!
Each of the beaches were really great, and were unlike the beaches we are accustomed to near New York. What we like about the beaches in Jacksonville is that they have an extremely wide surf of wet and hard sand, making it very friendly for long walks. Also, they were not crowded with a lot of people, and had plenty of street parking nearby.
Stormy skies, but beautifully wide Jacksonville Beach
We went to each of the beach areas in the closest vicinity to Jacksonville, Atlantic Beach, Jacksonville Beach, and Mikler’s Beach in Ponte Vedra, as well as take a trip further south to see the beach at St. Augustine.
While at Mickler’s Beach, we were able to collect some shells. While not as impressive as our Costa Rica seashell collection, they definitely make a nice addition to our condo!
Seashells collected at Mickler’s Beach
Dealing with the rain and humidity
While the weather in Jacksonville is beautiful in the non-summer months, the summer time is hot, humid and rainy, and we definitely experienced all of that during the week we visited.
During the day, it gets very hot with temperatures in the upper 80’s or 90’s, with a strong sun. Other times of the day it is cooler, but still quite humid. On many summer days, you can expect a thunderstorm or heavy rain shower in the afternoon, which can cool things off, but these usually only last for a short while.
Heavy rain as seen from our front door
Understanding the weather, we planned our day around it, opting to go to the beach or for walks first thing in the morning or late in the day, and working in our condo or running errands during the hot and potentially rainy middle part of the day, so we could stay in the air conditioning.
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In all, we couldn’t be happier with our stay, and re-affirmed that Jacksonville is most definitely a place we can spend a lot of our time when we are able to be location independent, even in the hot summer!
We are Scott and Caroline, 50-somethings who spent the first 20+ years of our adult lives in New York City, working traditional careers and raising 2 kids. We left full-time work in our mid-40’s for location-independent, part-time consulting projects and real estate investing, in order to create a more flexible and travel-centric lifestyle. 
Financial independence and early retirement is not something we originally focused on, but over time realized it was possible. Our free report, 
