Tampa Ranked 5th In Nation For Recreation; St. Pete Ranked 27th

TAMPA, FL — If your Fourth of July weekend includes a visit to one of Tampa's many parks and recreation facilities, you're in good company. The personal finance website, WalletHub, has just ranked Tampa fifth in the nation for Best Cities for Recreation.

With July being National Parks and Recreation Month and America’s largest cities investing more than $8 billion on parks this past year, the personal-finance website WalletHub released its report on 2019's Best & Worst Cities for Recreation.

To highlight the benefits of recreational activities, WalletHub compared the 100 largest U.S. cities across 48 key indicators of recreation-friendliness including the accessibility of entertainment and recreational facilities, the quality of parks and the weather.

Ranking ahead of Tampa were San Diego, Las Vegas, Orlando and Honolulu.

Also making the list of Best Cities for Recreation was St. Petersburg at No. 27.

That's the reverse of the opinion by The Trust For Public Land, which ranked the largest cities in the country based on the park systems in May (see related story). St. Pete ranked 17th in the nation while Tampa ranked 44th.

Here are some highlights of the report:

Recreation in Tampa (1=Best; 50=Avg.):

• 33rd – Spending on parks per capita
• 26th – Bike rental facilities per capita
• 38th – Music venues per capita
• 27th – Swimming pools per capita
• 1st – Fishing spots per capita