Geography shaped all of it. St. Petersburg sits on the tip of the Pinellas peninsula, with Tampa Bay on one side and Boca Ciega Bay and the Gulf beaches on the other — so much shoreline that more than half the city’s area is water. Waterfront parks ring the downtown, Sunken Gardens has kept its tropical jungle growing in the heart of the city for a century, and out at the peninsula’s end Fort De Soto guards miles of quiet beach. This is a city you are never far from the water in, and it has built its best life right at the edge of it.
It found that reason in the weather. St. Petersburg catches sun so reliably that an early paper, the Evening Independent, promised to give its copies away free on any day the sun failed to shine — and rarely had to make good on it. The nickname stuck: the Sunshine City. For half a century downtown was also known for its green benches, thousands of them lining the sidewalks and filling the postcards mailed north by winter visitors. Sunshine, a long bright waterfront, and an unhurried pace pulled tourists and retirees in by the trainload.
Why People Visit St Petersburg
St. Petersburg mixes sunshine, shoreline, and a genuine arts scene in a way few Florida cities can. Visitors come for the waterfront museums and murals, the pier and the bayfront parks, the nearby Gulf beaches, and the easy, bright pace of a city that has earned its Sunshine City name for more than a century. History sits comfortably beside everyday life here, from the spot where the first airline took flight to the gardens and galleries downtown, and the water is never more than a few blocks away.
