Does anybody have any good recommendations for Botanical Gardens or the like here in Florida? I've been so busy remodeling our condo that I haven't had time to play with my new camera equipment, however a day trip to a garden would provide a good opportunity.

Did you ever mention what part of Florida you live in?

I did...we moved to Tampa from out of state in July (still haven't gotten used to this humidity). As far as range, i don't mind driving a couple of hours so long as the payoffs worth it. In fact I'm dying to get out of the house for a day.

There is one at the U of F and also a great one in Sarasota.

Yeah i heard of the one at usf, my wife works for usf...but haven't heard about any in sarasota. do you know the name of that one? i went swimming down there and the beaches were nice.

You can the Sunken garden in St-Pete

The sunken garden looks pretty cool and will give me a chance to check out downtown st petersburg. The weird thing about tampa is that after business hours the downtown is like a ghost town. Far different than the bustling nitelife in san diegos downtown.

Selby Gardens is part of an old estate If I am not mistaken. I would love to join a group going there for a day.

Is that the name of the one in Sarasota?

For that you can try Ybor city, or Old hyde park (aka SOHO)
But don' be foolish to compare tampa, a small southern city with San Diego. For that you need to go to Miami

Right you are...but before i moved here from san diego I didn't know what to expect. Now Miami I know what to expect more or less but its a bit of a drive it seems. I've walked around Ybor but have yet to check out SOHO so I'll look into it.

St Pete is tiny but I like the small down town, much more alive than Tampa Ghost City Center.

Ok can you recommend any good restaurants there too.

Hi, not really, I did not go to St Pete Down Town very often. I usually go to "Fort de Soto park" and there is not much there but the amazing beach, and birds. If you drive to St Pete, you also have to go there

In Tampa you might want to have a look to Lettuce Park and walk along their wood trails along the river. I LOVE IT.

In down town Tampa, nowadays, the Tampa Museum of Art | is a good place to go. Not because of the museum collection which is pretty much a shame, but because of the building itself and around it. There is a nice playground for kids, nice environment and nice sceneview of Down Town and on the University of Tampa.

There is also the small botanical garden of USF in Tampa. Weird place because of the way it is organised and because it is very small, but interesting and not as far

Enjoy!!

The University of Tampa is the building that looks like it has minarets right? If so I drove by this area/park and looks pretty cool. Also driving north on 275 from downtown...a little ways there is this white old tower on the west side of the freeway...looks kinda interesting. Any idea what that is, i thought perhaps i might take some interesting pics of it.