🇺🇸 🏝️ Tampa｜Escape the City With Me

New York → 4 Days & 3 Nights → No Car Needed! 🏠 Stay: Near Clearwater Beach (6-min walk to the beach — caught the sunset every evening 🌅✨) 🍽️ Food: Relied on Google Maps for highly-rated beachfront restaurants — all were amazing! 🦞🍹 After meals, we’d take walks by the water or enjoy drinks with a sea breeze 🥂 🫧 Activities: 🚣 Crystal Kayaking ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ No prior fitness level needed, but it’s a workout — almost like dragon boat racing 😂 Totally worth it though! We went on a rainy day (which was nice), but the sun came out near the end — sunscreen is a must! 🧴 This activity took almost a full day: ~5 hours round trip, 1 hour waiting due to rain, 2.5 hours kayaking. Went straight to shower and eat after! 🚗 Uber from Clearwater: ~2.5 hours each way ($140 there, $200 back) 📍 Rainbow Springs & Devil’s Den Prehistoric Spring 🐬 Dolphin Tour ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ~1 hour long Booked via Tripadvisor: Little Toot Dolphin Adventure at Clearwater Beach Chose the 11 am slot — dolphins are more active in the morning/noon! Super lucky — saw so many 🐬💙 Just a short walk from where we stayed. 🏛️ The Ringling Museum ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ HIGHLY recommend! Unlike any other museum — the circus exhibit 🎪 and European art wing were fascinating. The grounds are beautiful too, with giant trees and nature walks 🌳 Bonus: I left my camera there and the staff kindly found it and mailed it back to NYC for free! 💗 🏖️ Siesta Beach ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Compared to Clearwater Beach, it felt less developed. Only one main path to the beach — the rest is grass/mud (got my feet dirty 🤡). The sand was a bit sticky and had broken shells 🐚 — hurt to walk barefoot. Sunset was pretty though! Clearwater’s sand is finer, whiter, and cooler after sunset — perfect for running barefoot 🤓 Overall, it was a super chill trip — lots of ocean gazing, sunset watching, and lounging on beach chairs 🍹 Prefer a busier schedule? You can also check out Tampa Zoo, Downtown Tampa, or the Dalí Museum! We used Uber the whole time — every driver was friendly, chatty, and even offered music choices and phone chargers 💖 #Tampa #TravelDiary #BeachLife #SummerVibes #NoCarNeeded