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Tampa Bay festivals and annual events

The festivals, parades and annual events worth planning around, month by month, plus the markets that are on every week.

MetroCon
July 2027

MetroCon

Friday, July 23 to Sunday, July 25 Tampa Convention Center, Tampa

MetroCon fills the Tampa Convention Center each summer with Florida's largest anime gathering: three days of cosplay, artist alley, gaming and late-night raves. Running since under Team Dynamite Productions, it draws tens of thousands and spills costumed attendees onto Franklin Street and into downtown restaurants all weekend. The main events recur year to year, among them costume and idol contests, a masquerade ball, a human chess match and an after-dark fire show. Know before you go: the convention runs roughly 10am to 3am Friday and Saturday and 10am to 6pm Sunday, with the exhibit hall on shorter daytime hours that end mid-afternoon Sunday. Badges come as three-day or single-day passes and cost less when you pre-register online; ages 6 to 12 get a child rate, and under 6 is free with a paid adult. Anyone under 13 needs a registered parent or guardian with them at all times. Check the Tampa Convention Center site for parking. Cosplayers, bring a repair kit.

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August 2027

On every week in Tampa Bay

Markets and walks that run year-round, not one-off dates.

Already run this year

These are annual, so they come back around the same time next year. Worth marking now if you missed them.

Concerts & shows

Live, ticketed events near Tampa Bay.

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Planning the trip around it

Practical guides from SuddenStay, our sister site for Florida hotels and days out.

Clearwater Beach when it rains

July brings about twenty days with rain, and most cost you an hour rather than an afternoon. How to tell a passing storm from a washout.

St. Pete Beach on a budget

The big resorts want $300 a night. Here is how to get the same beach, literally the same sand, for half that or less.

Is the Busch Gardens Fun Card worth it?

About the price of two discounted day tickets, good for sixteen months. Parking is what turns that from a bargain into a slow drip.

Photos: Michel Rathwell CC BY 2.0; qwesy qwesy CC BY 3.0; Jeremy Thompson CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Explore Florida

The natural places worth the drive, any time of year.

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Florida Springs
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Florida Springs

Florida sits on top of one of the largest gatherings of freshwater springs on Earth, and they run a constant 68 to 74 degrees no matter the season. Some are first-magnitude giants pushing hundreds of millions of gallons a day, others are quiet blue sinkholes you can have to yourself at dawn. These are the ones worth the drive: the glass-bottom boat tours, the lazy-river tube runs, the cavern dives, and the winter springs where the manatees come in from the cold.

See all 24 places →
Florida State Parks
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Florida State Parks

Florida's park service runs about 175 state parks, and these are the ones worth planning a trip around. Wild barrier islands and sugar-sand beaches, deep springs and dark caverns, 19th-century forts and prairies where bison still roam, from the Panhandle's emerald coast to the coral reefs of the Keys. The definitive short list, not the whole directory.

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Florida Attractions
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Florida Attractions

For much of the world, Florida means the attractions. The theme parks that built Orlando, a working spaceport on the Atlantic coast, mermaids who have performed underwater since 1947, and a coral castle one man carved by hand. This is the big statewide guide to what people fly to Florida for, the giants and the roadside icons alike, from the Keys to the Panhandle.

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The Best Florida Beaches
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The Best Florida Beaches

Florida has more coastline than any state but Alaska, and it spends it well. This is the definitive run: the sugar-white quartz of the Panhandle's Emerald Coast, the shell-strewn Gulf islands you reach by boat, the surf and skyline of the Atlantic, and the impossible turquoise of the Keys. Some you drive to and park; some take a ferry and a plan. All of them earn it. The best beaches in Florida, coast to coast.

See all 20 places →
Wild Florida Gulf Coast Beaches9 places

Wild Florida Gulf Coast Beaches

Florida's wildest Gulf beaches make you work for them: some you reach only by boat, others by a long walk past the last paved road. These are the undeveloped barrier islands and protected state-park shores with no resort strip and no high-rise wall, just sugar sand, dunes, shelling, and the kind of quiet you earn. Pack your own water and shade.

Best Florida Wildlife14 places

Best Florida Wildlife

Where to see Florida's wildlife up close: manatees, alligators, roseate spoonbills, the Florida panther and the tiny Key deer, across springs, swamps and refuges from the Panhandle to the Keys.

Best Tampa Bay Breweries9 places

Best Tampa Bay Breweries

Tampa Bay's beer runs deep, from Ybor City lager houses to a Seminole Heights stout cult with overnight release lines. These are the breweries worth building a crawl around, the ones that earned their name glass by glass.

Popular Florida Gulf Coast Beaches9 places

Popular Florida Gulf Coast Beaches

These are the Gulf Coast beaches you plan a vacation around: the famous beach-town shores with the pier, the umbrellas, and dinner a barefoot walk away. Easy to reach, lively, and worth the crowds they draw. The classics, done right.

Wild Florida Atlantic Coast Beaches14 places

Wild Florida Atlantic Coast Beaches

The Atlantic coast keeps its wild stretches tucked between the beach towns: undeveloped barrier islands, a national seashore, and refuge shores where sea turtles still outnumber people. Walk past the last parking lot at Canaveral and the crowds vanish; wander Big Talbot's boneyard beach where storm-felled oaks bleach white in the surf. No high-rise wall, no boardwalk, just dunes, driftwood, and open ocean. Bring water and shade, and leave South Beach to everyone else.

Popular Florida Atlantic Coast Beaches13 places

Popular Florida Atlantic Coast Beaches

This is the other Florida Atlantic, the one with a soundtrack: beach-town shores where the boardwalk, the pier, and the bars are half the point. Park once and walk to South Beach's pastel lifeguard towers, Daytona's hard-packed sand you can still drive on, Cocoa Beach's morning surf, and Fort Lauderdale's strip of cafes across from the water. Come for the crowds, the people-watching, and the easy day where everything you need is steps from the sand.