Tampa Bay Chauffeur Guide

Tampa Bay, from the driver’s seat.

We move people around this region every day — from Tampa International to the beaches, from downtown hotels to the cruise terminals, across the bay to St. Petersburg and down the coast to Sarasota. That gives us a particular and quite narrow kind of expertise: we know where the parking fails, which hotel loads on which street, how much the causeway costs you in March, and which order to do a day in so it does not cross the city twice.

So that is what these guides cover. Hours, ticket prices and menus belong to the places themselves and we link to them rather than restating them — but the transportation layer underneath a visit to Tampa Bay is ours, and it is the part most guides skip.

Start with the question you arrived with.

Airport & Arrival Guides

Tampa International is an easy airport to arrive at and an awkward one to leave if nobody has told you how it works — one Main Terminal, four satellite airsides reached by shuttle, a baggage claim split Red and Blue by airline, and a rental car centre that is not in the building. These pages cover the pickup itself and the seven destinations we are most often asked to drive to from it.

Cruise Guides

Port Tampa Bay is one of the few cruise ports in the country that is genuinely in a city — the terminals sit on Channelside Drive, minutes from downtown hotels and the airport. Almost every sailing is a turnaround, which means almost every cruise needs a transfer in and a pickup out. These are the pages that cover both, plus what to do with the day in between.

Tampa Neighborhoods

Tampa is not one place. The new waterfront downtown, the century-old cigar district a mile east of it and the oak-shaded historic neighbourhood to the south have almost nothing in common except a postcode, and knowing which is which is most of what makes a short visit good. St. Petersburg and Sarasota, across the bay and down the coast, are different again.

Dining & Nightlife

Tampa Bay eats better than its reputation, and the good rooms are spread across four cities rather than concentrated in one district — which is a transportation problem as much as a dining one. These are the Insider Guide’s curated picks, chosen by people who drive to them, plus the evening itinerary that strings them together.

Family

A family day in an unfamiliar city usually fails on logistics rather than on attractions: the car park on the far side of the park, the buggy, the nap, the wet swimsuits. Tampa Bay has an unusually strong set of family attractions within a short run of each other, and these pages cover both halves of the problem.

Corporate & Meetings

The business half of Tampa Bay is spread across Westshore, downtown and the Water Street district, with the airport close enough that a same-day trip is realistic and a delayed flight is genuinely expensive. These pages cover what a company books rather than what a visitor books — accounts, roadshows, event transport and executive travel.

Day Trips

Tampa Bay is four cities and a string of barrier islands, and the distances are the kind that make a rental car look necessary and then make it a liability once you arrive. A chauffeured day trip is the shape that actually fits — dropped where you want to be, collected when you are done, and nobody driving home afterwards.