More than just a big city with all the sophistication, culture, industry and services that implies, Tampa is also a place for family vacations and encounters of the natural kind. Situated on Florida's largest inlet, Tampa Bay, which separates it from sister city St. Petersburg, Tampa has a lot of shipping history in its past, and in its present. With its strategic position, it began as a Seminole War fort. Later its quick access to the Gulf of Mexico and deep port brought cigar-making and Spanish-American War preparations to town.
In downtown Tampa, the focus in recent years has returned to the harbor and the Hillsborough River that runs through town.

The cigar industry, moved here from Key West, centered in the district of Ybor City. With the factories came immigrant workers from Cuba, Italy, Germany and Spain to flavor the town with the chatter, food and traditions of many cultures. The Cuban influence has stuck most tenaciously and today Cuban restaurants, a redolent coffee-roasting plant, cigar shops and lively Latin festivals persist even though the factories are gone. Shopping and entertainment's Centro Ybor occupies one of the colorful neighborhood's historic buildings. Ybor City Museum State Park resides in the old bakery. An inn, restaurants and shops line main street Seventh Avenue, home of the original Columbia Restaurant. Progenitor to a line of Spanish restaurant spin-offs throughout Florida, it stands out with its elaborate tiled exterior and flamenco dancing shows.

In downtown Tampa, the focus in recent years has returned to the harbor and the Hillsborough River that runs through town. Cruise ship business has picked up, and a new trolley transports passengers to Ybor City and other attractions. At the Channelside District, an entertainment-dining multiplex has appeared along with big-name resorts, professional hockey and the Florida Aquarium, a seashell-shaped glass dome with more than 10,000 aquatic plants and animals inside. Next door, you can tour a WW II-era merchant marine ship.

Inner city, attractions old and new beckon. Railroad builder Henry Plant's fantastical Tampa Hotel now holds university offices and the Henry B. Plant Museum, furnished for the 1890s, when Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders headquartered there. Bayshore Boulevard winds between the waterfront and its stately homes, known as the world's longest unbroken sidewalk and site of the swashbuckling Gasparilla Pirate Festival in February. In historic neighborhoods such as Hyde Park, shopping and dining opportunities excel.

In its northern reaches, Tampa satisfies family urges with the Lowry Park Zoo, a hands-on kids town, the wondrous Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), Busch Gardens Tampa Bay and Adventure Island. Begun as a tour of a beer factory, Busch Gardens stands today among Florida's leading theme parks. Here the motif is Africa, and hundreds of real live animals add to the realism of exotic shows and thrill rides. Its sidekick water park, Adventure Island, is one of Florida's oldest, biggest and most exhilarating. Nearby Plant City has its Dinosaur World attraction to offer family vacationers, and its annual Strawberry Festival, a celebration of the town's sweet and juicy crop.

Along Tampa's fringes, the Hillsborough River, state parks and other natural kingdoms provide a quiet, bucolic flipside to the city life. The same river that plunges through city center takes canoeists and kayakers on a nature odyssey where alligators, hawks and majestic domes of cypress trees dwell. A 16,000-acre preserve known as Wilderness Park surrounds the river and its branches and was made for paddlers and pedallers. The river also is centerpiece of Hillsborough River State Park, one of Florida's oldest. Here, the river frolics around limestone upcroppings, providing rapids for experienced canoeists, who can rent vessels at the park. History buffs can tour a reconstructed Seminole War historic site, Fort Foster, and the park has campgrounds, a swimming pool and nature trails.