I am both close and confident of a job opening happening for me in Tampa Fl! The problem with that is…I’ve never been there. Like, ever. So are there any dopers in the area that could tell me a little bit about the area?
The job is technically in Brandon, but they’re moving to some two-named trendy part of Tampa in 2015. Seeing only google maps of the geography it doesn’t seem like it’s that spread out of a city, so it’s not Atlanta, but is the traffic still bad?
What are the good neighborhoods? Bad ones? Good Areas? etc. Should I look towards the coast? Inland more? Does it matter?
Tampa airport is super easy to get to, small without being too small. Takeoffs and especially landings can be VERY white knuckle due to the frequent storms and accompanying wind gusts. If there’s a lightning storm, the ground crews duck for cover (wisely) and you may have to go back later to shag your luggage. Carry on’s the way to go if you can.
When my wife and I lived in the area (Brooksville to the north and Safety Harbor on the Bay) we enjoyed going to Tarpon Springs for Greek food. (It’s a Greek community started by sponge divers.) The Florida terrain is boring if you’re from the mountains because it’s very flat for the most part. Traffic isn’t too bad by “big city” standards but I have no idea what the bus situation is. Not a lot of roads are through roads because of the large amount of lakes, streams, bay incursion and so on. The roads are in fairly good shape, unlike Californias. Insurance is sort of high, cost of living fairly low and there are lots of homes for sale cheapish. On the other hand, pay is fairly low. If you like to fish or do water related activities, you’re in the right place. There are some good museums, the city tries hard to have a cultural sheen.
I didn’t like living there simply because I missed the mountains and deserts and I loathe humidity. Did I mention it’s really humid? Walking 50’ to the mailbox will soak your clothes. When it rains, often and harder than you can believe, you don’t get much wetter. You just cool off a little.
I wouldn’t take a million dollars for my time there, but I wouldn’t pay a nickle to repeat it.
I live in Tampa now and have for the past 12 years. The downside is afternoon traffic. I go to work at 5am so I miss most of that. It can get hot in the summer but not like other southeastern cities.
The upside? There are great beaches that you can enjoy many years well into December. Pretty much anything you want to do, it is available. The Tampa Bay area is pretty diverse. Clearwater is a touristy town with a great beach and good dining right off of the gulf. St Petersburg’s downtown is really great. Lots of nightlife there all while walking sidewalks downtown. Tampa itself is pretty small but Ybor has some fun stuff throughout the year. You can live in town or if you want country, you just have to go a few more miles north.
I can ride my bike to work and back safely and year round. We are in the midst of a terrible storm today and tomorrow…it will be a high of 55 with a low of 37 tomorrow.
Thanks MostlyUseless (I must say I heavily disagree with your username)
From what I can gather from just Google mapping, and from doing the directions, that if I wanted to live anywhere west of McKay bay I would probably have a half hour or so in traffic to get to Brandon, would that be accurate? If I lived near the Ybor district, and I worked in Brandon, and I left work at 5…in your estimation, how long would it take for me to get home?
Unfortunately, or more accurately, fortunately for me, I have no experience with rush hour traffic on that side of town. I typically hang east of Dale Mabry (the main N/S road). In the experience I do have, Brandon traffic is a nightmare in general. That area has become very popular and the infrastructure changes have not kept pace.
I live in north Hillsborough County and work in north St Pete.
I will say that in my estimation, this is the nicest place I have ever lived and if I get my choices, I ain’t leaving ever. Good weather, drivers not worse than anywhere else and lots of choices for things to do. Kind of like living in Orlando near the Mouse without having to live in Orlando (barf!).
Have you visited any of Florida? Other than the flyover country bits (Polk County, mostly) the I-4 corridor is pretty similar throughout, so if you’ve been to Orlando there’s nothing much in Tampa that will surprise you.
You’d be murdered before you made it home, so the commute wouldn’t really be a concern.
I’m biased, but I think St Petersburg is a much nicer place to live & play, though all the jobs are in Hillsborough County. Actually I can’t tell you that much about Tampa, as I don’t go there often mostly owing to the traffic. There are no beaches there to speak of, but they do have the hockey and football venues and all of the major concerts are in Tampa. Basically, aside from the downtown area, I just think of Tampa as sort of lacking in identity, with the further you get from downtown being faceless suburbs.
Clearwater Beach has a nice scene, if overly touristy and crowded. Clearwater proper has nothing whatsoever (unless you’re a Scientologist).
I have been in St Pete for over 20 years though so I’ll be glad to answer any questions about it; the good and the bad.
Well apparently Kharma didn’t hate me for starting the thread, I’m gonna be flown down there in a couple weeks to interview on-site.
My biggest issue is, without having been there, I can’t gauge commute times very well, and I don’t know if I want to live 45 min away from where I work, even when I have to only go a relatively short distance. It’s because of that fact that I am looking moer towards the central area of Tampa (in and around McKay bay) vs. where I would WANT to go, which is further west towards Clearwater beach/St. Pete.
I don’t believe cost of living is much higher (if at all) than here in Charlotte, but would it be significantly more money to live in the St. Pete area than in the McKay bay/Hyde Park area?
Also where should I generally AVOID living? I’d rather not be murdered…
One of the TV stations, forget which one, has a web feed that shows trouble spots on the road, along with an “Accuweather” or some such weather feed. Might be worth finding it and monitoring it for a week. When I lived in Brooksville, north of Tampa, the road I took was the SunCoast parkway. It was a toll road, but I had a transponder so the cost was reduced and it beat using Dale Mabry or route 19 most of the time. Traffic there wasn’t bad except around the airport and it tended to clear up fairly quickly.
One of the things I do miss about driving in that area was the people there seemed to make the 4 way stop process easier by both opposing vehicles go, then the ones at right angles. Two by two so to speak. Here in NorCal, everyone seems hell bent on the merry go round technique (even when there’s no left turners) and it slows the shit way down. They will actually blow their horns if you do twosies. “Fairness” I suppose.
mind the gap
Well I’ve dealt with Ohio drivers, and there are no worse driver than them!
I think St. Pete is out of the question unfortunately for me. The commute would just be too long and once I hit the main bridge (I’ve heard) the traffic would just be too nuts. But I’m still looking in the mid-section of the city. I have a couple places that I want to visit when I’m there. What’s public transportation like? I can’t image given the geography that they have a rail/train system…so is it all buses? Are they good?
She’s since left that job and is working contract at a different job.
And actually, before all my stuff started getting serious, she had a first-round interview in Tampa. So it’d be an insane amount of good luck if THAT happened, but we’re just kinda sitting chill on that.
Besides, given the amount of time we have already spent apart (and that time being entire states apart) having only a couple hours between us for a couple months is nooooothin.
ETA: Now that you made me think about it I talked it over with her and that’s what we’re gonna do. Basically have a race with her in whichever comes first: Her contract job doesn’t need her anymore, her lease runs out on her apt, or she gets a job in Tampa. Other than that, we’re only a couple hours away and we’ll just do weekends together (which is WAY more than I’ve had the last year)
Howey in the Hills…Always loved the name of that place, used to go through there on our weekend m/c rides in the country.
There is a bus system in the Tampa Bay area, but unless you don’t have to transfer or ride a far distance I think it’d be a distant second to private trans.
I’m not sure if it’d be a help, but as I recall, the U.S. census bureau has info on demographics for cities. Maybe you could get some information regarding populations including stuff like avg. income. Real estate ads would give a general idea of home prices and help indicate which neighborhoods are better vis a vis others. Except for certain trendy areas things mostly break down like other places. Inner cities are kind of edgy, burbs are safe but boring. One thing though, is that it seems to go from city to rural faster than some cities I’ve lived in. Unlike L.A.'s endless suburbs, you get more than a half hour out of town you find yourself “in the sticks”. Not “your sure got a pretty mouth” sticks, but plenty of open area and small towns.
Maybe the thing to do would be find an area that would be ok to start, rent and then get a feel for the place once the dust settles. If you could swing a short visit to recon the area, that’d be even better.
You’ll like it here, I think.
but they do have a hockey team so it can’t be all bad.