Need route for car tour, Northern Pinellas (Tampa, Clearwater: for sale, mobile home)

[tjax1000]

Hi,

I'm a native Floridian currently living out of state but returning to visit family in a couple days. Visiting family is the first priority but I want to take a day to drive around Safety Harbor, Dunnedin, etc. as prospective places we may want to move to in the future. After 30+ yrs in the state I've never truly explored this exact area. We used to vacation just south of there when I was a kid though, Treasure Island, Anna Maria, etc. and of I've been to Tampa many times.

Time is limited for myself, my wife and 1 yr old. We'll be driving over from Central FL via I-75. Looking for a general suggestion of a "best of" route. We'd like to see the best of Safety Harbor (downtown, waterfront, etc.), and maybe take a detour down a couple of roads that offer typical 300K-450K type homes for the area just so we can get a feel for neighborhoods.

Secondly, from Safety Harbor I think we'll probably want to keep driving due west over to the Gulf side. Is it an easy drive out on Honeymoon Island? Any other notable things to see nearby that might be of interest to prospective residents? e.g. downtown Dunnedin, other nearby towns, etc?

Thanks- any/all suggestions are welcome. We could just plop ourselves in the car and follow the map but I've found that sometimes you miss something grand that is just one street over. And also the rest of the family won't be amused if my game plan is just to randomly drive around looking for stuff.

[cariad]

Originally Posted by tjax1000

Hi,

I'm a native Floridian currently living out of state but returning to visit family in a couple days. Visiting family is the first priority but I want to take a day to drive around Safety Harbor, Dunnedin, etc. as prospective places we may want to move to in the future. After 30+ yrs in the state I've never truly explored this exact area. We used to vacation just south of there when I was a kid though, Treasure Island, Anna Maria, etc. and of I've been to Tampa many times.

Time is limited for myself, my wife and 1 yr old. We'll be driving over from Central FL via I-75. Looking for a general suggestion of a "best of" route. We'd like to see the best of Safety Harbor (downtown, waterfront, etc.), and maybe take a detour down a couple of roads that offer typical 300K-450K type homes for the area just so we can get a feel for neighborhoods.

Secondly, from Safety Harbor I think we'll probably want to keep driving due west over to the Gulf side. Is it an easy drive out on Honeymoon Island? Any other notable things to see nearby that might be of interest to prospective residents? e.g. downtown Dunnedin, other nearby towns, etc?

Thanks- any/all suggestions are welcome. We could just plop ourselves in the car and follow the map but I've found that sometimes you miss something grand that is just one street over. And also the rest of the family won't be amused if my game plan is just to randomly drive around looking for stuff.

I'll give it a shot, but this will be long.

Since you are coming on I75, I'll assume you're coming from the North Central, so take 275 towards St. Pete and then the exit for Tampa International, Clearwater(rte 60). Cross the Courtney Campbell Causeway and then turn right on S.Bayshore-this will take you to downtown Safety Harbor, and the pier.

Explore downtown and side streets-won't take long, then come back out main st to bayshore/phillippe parkway-turn left right in front of the safety harbor resort entrance on N.Bayshore and you can explore the neighborhood along the edge of old tampa bay. From Grand Central/or any other thru street go west to Phillippe Parkway(rte 590)and turn right. Follow to entrance to Phillippe Park(on your right) Take a walk along the bay, relax.
Back out on the parkway you will see some neighborhoods to your left, the ones on the right, probably above the price range you want.
(Note, there are also some very nice neighborhoods off of Marshall Ave and Enterprise-before the entrance to the park)

Follow the parkway to the end and turn left to SR 580. Follow this to Dunedin-turn left to Main St-downtown Dunedin.
Lots of nice neighborhoods from downtown Dunedin on-but I'm just going to give the main tour route.

from Main St, turn right on Alt 19N. Follow this to left on Dunedin Causeway and Honeymoon Island . Back out from Honeymoon and turn left on Alt 19 again. Left at Tampa Rd(stop and have ice cream at Strahans) and explore the fishing Village/ homes of Ozona.

Back out to left on Alt 19 again and follow to right on Florida Ave and historic downtown Palm Harbor. Some nice older buildings here, and Peggy O'Neill's is great if you're ready to eat.

Back out and north on alt19, turn left on Crystal Beach Drive and follow to the gulf front park-stunning sunsets here and explore the neighborhood.
If you still have time you can drive further north to Tarpon Springs

[On-da-Beach]

This is an excellent path!! Great suggestion Cariad... The sponge docks in Tarpon Springs are a nice visit if you have time.

[tjax1000]

Thanks for taking the time to write this out! It helped a lot and improves greatly upon what I would have done just by looking at a map. If anyone has any suggestions to add, feel free!

I took the time to plot out this route on a Google Map...
Custom Route (http://tinyurl.com/83gr9y - broken link)

Knowing that at the end of the route I want to get back to I-75 to return to Leesburg, what route would you suggest for a direct return? I could always just backtrack, but looking at the map maybe I should continue north to 54 and then west back to I-75, or something similar to this?

Thanks again.

[cariad]

Yes, we always go up to 54 then east over to 75 when going north. From Tarpon Springs go east on keystone to north(left) on Eastlake and right on Trinity Blvd, right on 54

[xlabel]

You can get on SR 54 and take the Suncoast Pkwy north also, It ends up at Hwy 98 then you go right about 9 miles to Brooksvile pick up US41 and go to SR44 in Inverness. The Pkwy has a few toll booths but it's only a few dollars, it's more of a country drive as opposed to I-75. There is also some nice newer neighborhoods in the Safety Harbor area just behind Sylvan Abbey Cemetery. If you were to take a left off of Bayshore onto Main St. go west on 588 to Mcmullen Booth Rd turn right and then take a left at the first light(can't remember that Rd name) there are some nice homes back in there.

[tjax1000]

xlabel, good advice, I just checked that area using Google Street Views. It appears to be Union Street. Although, looking at the properties for sale in that area (using zillow.com) I'm a in a bit of disbelief, 500K on up to a million. I can only hypothesize that there was no housing bubble and subsequent "crash"! Must have been a figment of my imagination. Either that, or it is 2005 again! But, at least we'll get an idea of some of the nicer areas by checking out this neighborhood.

We also got a bit of a chuckle tonight... we were planning a drive by of a brand new home for sale that we saw in Safety Harbor... looked great, priced not much over 300K I think. Then we used Google Street Views and saw that the back neighbor is a very old, falling apart mobile home (with more old mobile homes behind that) and the house across the street had cars sitting on the front lawn.

[Sunscape]

That is a wonderful route you have posted, Cariad.
Giving you rep for it. Hope everybody else does too!!!

[xlabel]

Originally Posted by tjax1000

xlabel, good advice, I just checked that area using Google Street Views. It appears to be Union Street. Although, looking at the properties for sale in that area (using zillow.com) I'm a in a bit of disbelief, 500K on up to a million. I can only hypothesize that there was no housing bubble and subsequent "crash"! Must have been a figment of my imagination. Either that, or it is 2005 again! But, at least we'll get an idea of some of the nicer areas by checking out this neighborhood.

We also got a bit of a chuckle tonight... we were planning a drive by of a brand new home for sale that we saw in Safety Harbor... looked great, priced not much over 300K I think. Then we used Google Street Views and saw that the back neighbor is a very old, falling apart mobile home (with more old mobile homes behind that) and the house across the street had cars sitting on the front lawn.

Thats right,it is Union ST, if you were to take Union west until the 4 way stop and go left that is Soule Rd, it takes you back out to 588. If you were to take a right and take the next immediete left,(the road forks there)and go about100 yrds or so that is Diane Dr,thats the neighborhood I grew up in. It has a lot of homes built in the 60's with newer homes mixed in, particularily east of Diane dr and at the end of Morningside Dr. That neighborhood is actually Clearwater addresses. It always has been a stable neighborhood,safe,good place to grow up.

[tjax1000]

Hi guys, just a followup since we just returned from our trip to FL. I was able to do the driving route pretty much exactly as suggested with only a couple variations. It worked out well. On the way back we cut across East Tarpon Avenue (I think) to get to 54 for the return.

It was a nice day, although windy. Honeymoon Island was nice but had a lot of stinky seaweed, but I think this is not normal and just a result of excessive winds? Also, the sign in the park that said "Rattlesnakes are common in this area" didn't do a whole lot for my wife but I figure you'll never see one if you just stick to the beach, right?

Downtown Dunedin was larger than expected and looked quite nice. We also really liked Safety Harbor. Of course, the areas between communities was not very exciting and just suburban, low density commercial sprawl which is kind of unfortunate but par for the course. For example, the stretch along 580.

The neighborhoods mentioned near Union Street were extremely nice. Well established and very well cared for. I think we could see ourselves living here if we were lucky enough to find something near $400K, although the property taxes in this area are also a major concern.

So anyway, nice route and a good way to spend the day. Thanks again.