Tampa

Top things to do in Tampa

1. 01

   Busch Gardens Tampa Bay - coasters over a savannah

   adventure nature wildlife 👍 Popular

   Florida's third great theme park, and the only one built around an animal collection: a long roster of steel coasters threaded above a Serengeti plain where giraffes, zebra and rhino graze in the open, with a train and a skyride crossing it. It started life as a hospitality garden attached to the brewery next door, which is why the layout feels more like a zoo that grew rides than a park with animals bolted on.

2. 02

   Ybor City - the brick streets of the old cigar capital

   history culture arts ⭐ Highly recommended

   A National Historic Landmark district north-east of downtown, founded in the 1880s when Vicente Martinez Ybor moved his cigar operation up from Key West and Cuban, Spanish and Italian workers followed. Seventh Avenue still runs between cast-iron balconies, social club buildings and the brick factories, wild chickens roam the side streets as a protected flock, and hand-rollers still work at a counter or two.

3. 03

   Tampa Riverwalk - the Hillsborough waterfront on foot

   scenic culture arts ⭐ Highly recommended

   A continuous paved route of a couple of miles along the river through the middle of town, stringing together the art museum, the children's museum, the history centre, the arena and a run of parks and jetties. It is the single best way to read the city, and it connects to the streetcar at the Channelside end.

4. 04

   The Florida Aquarium - Gulf habitats at Channelside

   nature wildlife 👍 Popular

   Built around the ecosystems of the state itself rather than a generic reef tour: a walk-through wetlands aviary, a Florida springs gallery, sharks and a coral conservation programme that breeds staghorn for replanting on the reef. There is a splash yard outside for small children, which buys parents an extra hour.

5. 05

   Gasparilla - the pirate invasion of the bay

   culture arts nightlife music 👍 Popular

   Late every January a fully rigged pirate ship sails up the bay with a flotilla of hundreds of private boats behind it, the krewe demands the keys to the city, and a parade runs the length of Bayshore Boulevard. It has been going since 1904 and is the closest thing outside New Orleans to a homegrown American carnival.

6. 06

   Bayshore Boulevard - walk the balustrade along the bay

   scenic

   A long unbroken sidewalk, often claimed as the longest continuous stretch in the country, running several miles beside the open water below Hyde Park with a low white balustrade the whole way. Runners and cyclists own it at dawn, dolphins turn up in the channel, and the skyline sits at the far end.

7. 07

   Tampa Theatre - a 1926 atmospheric movie palace

   culture arts history

   One of the best-preserved John Eberson picture palaces anywhere: a courtyard interior of Mediterranean facades, statues and gargoyles under a domed ceiling of twinkling stars and drifting clouds. It still runs as a working cinema with a Wurlitzer organ played before screenings, and does tours between films.

8. 08

   Henry B. Plant Museum - the minarets of the Tampa Bay Hotel

   history culture arts

   The silver onion domes on the west bank of the river belong to the railroad baron's 1891 resort hotel, a Moorish revival pile that put Tampa on the tourist map and later housed troops staging for Cuba. The University of Tampa occupies most of it now, with one wing kept as a museum of the original furnishings.

9. 09

   Columbia Restaurant - Spanish dining rooms since 1905

   food history

   Florida's oldest restaurant, filling a whole Ybor City block of tiled courtyards and dark-wood dining rooms, still run by the founding family. The 1905 salad is tossed at the table, the Spanish bean soup and the deviled crab are the honest orders, and there is flamenco most nights in one of the rooms.

10. 10

    The Tampa Cuban sandwich - the version with salami in it

    food

    Tampa's argument with Miami: here the layering of roast pork, ham, Swiss, pickle and mustard also carries Genoa salami, the Italian contribution to a cigar-factory lunch. It is pressed on Cuban bread baked with a palmetto frond laid down the top, and the best examples are still in Ybor and West Tampa bakeries.

11. 11

    Armature Works - eat inside the old streetcar barn

    food

    The city's 1910 streetcar maintenance building in Tampa Heights, reworked into a food hall of independent counters with a lawn on the river outside. It anchors the northern end of the Riverwalk and is where locals actually go on a weekend, alongside the restored water works building in the park next door.

12. 12

    ZooTampa at Lowry Park - the manatee hospital

    nature wildlife

    A mid-sized zoo whose real distinction is a critical care centre for injured and cold-stressed manatees, one of very few in the state, with viewing windows onto the recovery pools. The Florida wildlife section is stronger than the exotics, and the whole thing is walkable in a morning with young children.

13. 13

    Amalie Arena and Raymond James Stadium - a serious sports town

    culture arts

    Tampa turns out for its teams: Lightning hockey downtown at an arena that fires cannon and Tesla coils after goals, and Buccaneers football across town in a stadium with a full-size pirate ship anchored behind one end zone. Both drop you into the local mood faster than any museum.

14. 14

    Hillsborough River - paddle upstream from the city

    nature wildlife adventure

    The river that made the town stays wild surprisingly close to it. Boardwalks and canoe launches at Lettuce Lake Park north-east of downtown put you among cypress knees, alligators and wading birds within twenty minutes of the skyline, and outfitters run longer paddles down from the state park upstream.

Getting to & around Tampa

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