Traveling Huntleys

Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.

Wineries

Nation’s Oldest City: St. Augustine, Florida — Spanish Roots, Pirate Treasure & the Dade Pyramids

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Last Updated: August 2, 2026

St. Augustine is called the Nation’s Oldest City, and the claim holds up with one careful qualification. Founded in 1565 by the Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in the mainland United States. San Juan, Puerto Rico is older still, founded in 1521. Either way, St. Augustine was already two generations old when the English landed at Jamestown. Spain ceded Florida to the United States under the Adams-Onís Treaty, signed in 1819 and taking effect in 1821; St. Augustine served as capital of the Florida Territory until 1824, when the seat of government moved to Tallahassee — chosen, sensibly enough, as the midpoint between here and Pensacola.

Sandy Huntley walking Jake the dog along the sand at St. Augustine Beach, Florida
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Paso Robles, Wine Country, California

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Last Updated: June 6, 2026

Paso Robles is a beautiful wine region of rolling hills draped in grapevines and ancient oak trees, situated midway along the California coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It had been our go-to destination for long weekend getaways when we lived in San Diego. From Temecula it was a five-hour drive north — and absolutely worth every mile.

Traveling Huntleys' Newmar Dutch Star motorhome silhouetted at sunset at Cava Robles RV Resort, Paso Robles Wine Country, California
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Sonoita & Elgin Arizona: Wine Country, Wildlife & Wide Open Spaces

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Last Updated: May 2, 2026

Most people driving through southeastern Arizona are focused on Tombstone or Bisbee — and those are absolutely worth your time. But tucked between those famous destinations and the Mexican border lies one of Arizona’s best kept secrets: the Sonoita and Elgin wine country, a high desert grassland region at roughly 5,000 feet elevation where rolling hills, mountain panoramas, and surprisingly excellent wineries await. We came for the wine, stayed for the wildlife, and left having seen pronghorn antelope, world-class birding in Patagonia, a wildfire in the Dragoon Mountains, and a spontaneous snowstorm — all in the same week.

Rolling grass-covered hills and mountain views of the Sonoita Arizona wine country region at 5000 feet elevation
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Texas Hill Country: Wineries, LBJ Ranch, Fredericksburg & Luckenbach

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Last Updated: May 2026

Texas Hill Country sits west of Austin in the geologic region known as the Edwards Plateau — a rugged, ancient landscape shaped by Karst topography, where millennia of rainfall have dissolved the underlying limestone and dolomite into a terrain of sinkholes, caves, underground rivers, and cedar-covered hillsides. It is, in the most literal sense, Switzerland without the altitude. The area has a unique cultural fusion of Spanish colonial heritage and 19th-century German immigration, and it produces — somewhat surprisingly for a state not always associated with viticulture — some of the most interesting wines being made anywhere in the South. We came for the wine. We stayed for everything else.

This was an extended stay: two campgrounds, a dozen wineries and tasting rooms, a presidential national historical park, a World War II museum that made us rethink everything we thought we knew about the Pacific theater, the most famous dance hall in Texas, and a pair of hand-made boots. Texas Hill Country is not a weekend destination. It deserves a week, minimum.

LBJ Ranch Texas White House
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