St Augustine Visitor Information Center

The visitor center is your location for a bathroom break after you have driven and parked in the garage for $ 12/​day. There are also several interesting exhibits inside and a garden in the front as well. The tile walk is also nice to explore.

Come-​on for Travel Club. Don’t sign up you’ll be bombarded with sales calls after. They must sell their marketing lists.

We stopped by to see a free temporary exhibit that celebrated the city’s 450^th founding. It was very educational and spacious. The only problem is that you have to pay around $ 7 to park in the visitors center’s parking lot and, if you leave and want to return an hour later, you gotta pay $ 7 again.
Crazy right? That’s what my hubby and I thought, so we didn’t park there.

I like the visitors center at St. Augustine. On this stop, they had a huge event called Tapestry going on for their 450^th birthday celebration. You weren’t allowed to take pictures, and that’s understandable, because this is all artisan work, but it covered a lot of the city’s history through artwork. It was quite interesting.
And yes, here, you can park in a garage for $ 12.00 all day. If you’re lucky, it will be in the first level, where it’s nice and cool!

Good first stop to get information to plan places to visit in St. Augustine. Very helpful staff and interesting displays about the history of the town. Close to parking garage where you can park all day for $ 12.

I stopped into the visitor’s center with my group just to cool down and rest before heading on to our next stop. It’s a nice facility and it had the restrooms and water fountains we were looking for. We didn’t have time to look at the exhibit area but from what I saw It looked nice. I’d recommend stopping in here for information when you are visiting St. Augustine. An added bonus was they have one of those machines that make the pressed pennies for a souvenier. My kids always love those.

This visitors center was quite impressive from others I have visited. The parking garage is connected so it’s easy to find.
They had a wonderful exhibit of documents and artifacts donated by a family that detail the history of how St. Augustine came to be. My husband and I actually took some time to walk through. I’m actually surprised it was free to view. They could’ve easily charged admission.
There are displays with brochures of things to do while visiting and a cool touch screen and interactive display to help plan your visit.
A gift shop is off to the side but we didn’t stop in. We were also able to purchase tickets to the Night of lights holiday trolley ride from a representative with Ripleys. But just a note that if you buy online, you save $ 1.
There are also restrooms and some vending machines outside.
Great first stop before venturing the area.

My son and I came to see the Picasso art exhibit. As Ashley had mentioned, it is mostly Picasso’s bull work in drawings, prints, and ceramic formats. Lots of toreadors and bulls.
There is a video with PIcasso painting on glass and you can see how he creates his forms. My son and I sat there trying to guess what he was creating as he painted it.
There is also a timeline of his life and paintings from each period. We were lucky enough to be able to listen to a tour guide present it and tell us in-​depth what each period meant. Wow, Picasso was such a player. Lol.
One of the most interesting parts of the exhibit was the 12 part bull study in which one could see different stages of Picasso’s technique.
This exhibit will be gone in August 2013, so come see it now! Adjacent to the Picasso exhibit was a smaller one featuring artwork inspired by Picasso created by local students. There were some pretty nice artwork there. One was third place (collage featuring music notes and cut newspaper) which I felt should have been first, but oh well.
Yes, we drove almost an hour away to see this, and yes, we got hungry afterward and spent a bit on the local businesses too. Smart move, St Augie, smart move. Lol. (Jacksonville, are you listening?)

Made a special trip to see the Picasso exhibit. Can’t believe such a place could get in that kind of art. It wasn’t a huge selection, mostly his Bull work, but still, to see such in a visitor’s center is almost unheard of.
Everyone was friendly and helpful. And it was a great day to go.

This is a good launch-​point for your tour of Old Town St. Augustine.
The facilities are nice. I would give them four stars. They are clean, well lighted, and well marked.
For services, I’d give 2.5 stars. There is more selling of private tours inside than genuine, visitor-​center information. And half the inside space was dedicated to an art exhibit (pay to enter) that had nothing to do with St. Augustine, so I don’t really get that…
Still, overall, this is a good starting point, and it’s adjacent to the big parking deck.

I was going to go to the Picasso exhibit. After being treated like a street thug by the security guard I left.

If you’re a tourist and just don’t want to get lost while visiting this ancient city, well what better place to come visit than the visitors information center. Yes, I am a guy and I have no problem asking for directions when I know I’m fairly out of my depths in getting lost somewhere. To avoid that I don’t mind coming here and getting as many little maps and points of interest fliers as possible.
This place has a ton of information so you could do your own walking tour of the area without having to pay up the duckets to someone else for the simple task of talking to you.
The folks are nice here and they also have a slew of helpful hints for better enjoying your visit and not missing specific things and activities. So hey, stop by the visitor center here, it’ll actually be useful in getting you ready for your day.

This visitors center is huge and clean and everything Monica said about it is true. However, it is not worth a stop if you are needing to save time or leg wear. There’s a fine gift shop (can find the stuff downtown) and a miniature model of a Spanish Armada. Great clean bathrooms. They stopped the great movie – two years ago. This place is a lot of empty floor space. You can book either of the tram tours in this location but you can also get them downtown. I’d love for St. Augustine to utilize the space here better, perhaps get some interactives for guests!

If you are on an Adventure to the historical part of St. Augustine, I highly recommend stopping by the St. Augustine Visitor’s Center prior to your adventure. The Center is located directly across from the wonderfully new convenient parking garage on Castillo St. As you walk out of the parking garage to the historical district the Welcome Center is directly in front of your path.
Actually there are some beautiful mosaics on the outside of the building that are worth a peek as well. The interior of the Center is extremely large and done floor to ceiling in polished woods. It is actually quite beautiful, with some fascinating historical displays and a great 1^st starting point for a beautiful day in historical St. Augustine.
The Visitor’s Center staff is incredibly friendly and extremely knowledgeable. These folks seem happy to assist you with any tour or trolley tickets as well.
Most importantly, the Visitor’s Center has every piece of literature to take with you on your walking tour for the day. Most importantly they have a great colored map with the entire labyrinth of streets for the St. George area. All of the shops and locations are noted in little icons throughout this specific map of St. Augustine. Perfect for those not so familiar with all of the little side street, hole in the wall shops within this condensed area.
Important to note: There are very clean, air conditioned bathrooms in this facility as well, which may be important when heading back to the car after a long afternoon in the St. Augustine sun.