Today was my day off from work so I decided to make myself drive around in new parts of the city that I hadn't been in before. Since we still haven't found the perfect neighborhood to call home, I picked out two more to check out. The first one I went to was in the very southern part of the St. Pete's Beach area called Pass-A-Grille. I had heard that it felt like a small town and all the houses were walkable to the beach. I couldn't find any houses online that were within our price range which should have been a clue for me...but it wasn't. I went anyway and spent 50 min. just getting there.
It was a super quaint beach town with a few cute boutiques which I milled around in for a bit. There were a smattering of restaurants that were all mom and pop looking. The beach was peaking out from behind the tall grassy oats which helped give the town that old fashioned feel and there were no high rise hotels or condos. I'm not sure how much the houses were selling for but from what I could guess, not in our price range. I'm pretty sure that it would take at least 1/2 million to get anything decent. Yikes!!
So, moving on, I landed in another "quaint bay town" called Gulfport. In order to get to Gulfport you have to drive through several blocks of very run down neighborhoods and strip malls that were all about the pawn shop, cashing your check before you get paid and wiring money to other countries. Not really want I want to drive past on my way to and from work everyday. I should have known better and cut my loses before venturing any further into the abyss, but I persevered. Surely there's one town in Tampa that we could feel a kinship with. When I finally made it to Gulfport I was slightly surprised in the cute little town that finally appeared. There were a few blocks of boutique shops and restaurants along the edge of the bay. The signs hanging up said they had friday night art walks which sounded like fun. Realistically, there were obviously no neighborhood rules because about a 1/3 of the houses were decent and you could tell the owners took pride in their town but the rest were looking neglected to the point of looking abandoned. Probably not going to invest our money in that town either.
I did my due diligence and made the effort to scout out other areas of Tampa. I will go back to Pass-A-Grille to spend time at the beach and maybe do the shops again. I might do the artwalk at Gulfport too, but neither will be our hometown. I must keep looking.
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