Well, if you don't want to live in a party area, stay away from anything near Ybor City!

I live in St. Petersburg which is across the bridge so I can tell you a bit about it but not as far as living. One of the newer guys has tampa as location...Go_Aachmed

Good to have you down in our area. USF is a nice and up and coming college. Downtown Tampa has some nice museums, etc. Also, when you DO want to party Ybor City will give you all you can handle.

There are also a few towns across the bridge south (St. Pete, Clearwater, Largo, Tarpon Springs, Oldsmar) which would put you 30-45 mins away if that works as well.

If there is anything else I can help with or go look around, give me a yell, I am up in Tampa 2 days a week and can check it out.

*shudders*

That one transvestite fight I saw while being awesome scared the sh*t out of all the girls I was with. I was the only person with a dark sense of humor.

My godparents are in Brandon and it's very nice area. There is a really good aikido dojo in Largo that you might want to check out. I'm usually around that area once every few months.

edit: Check out here. http://www.equestrianparc.com/ I've been there a few times and stayed there for about two weeks and they are nice apartments. They are a bit more north east in New Tampa. Another one is Highland Lake which also looked nice. I never stayed there but I was on property and looked around. http://www.milanoplace.com/ is another joint you could check out.

I do a lot of work with Moffitt Cancer center, which is affiliated with USF. I'll ask some of them when I talk to them next. Might be a week though...

Thanks, Johnny. I'm operating largely within the dark, so every little bit helps.

And yes, I certainly sense a Tampa slap-and-tickle within the coming months.

Unfortunately I'm stuck in NW Florida (Pensacola, specifically). Y'all have fun though!

Excellent, thanks JimmDogg.

You want something near Bruce B Downs in the "Tampa Palms" area. It's all relatively new stuff and they are building up around it (shopping malls, restaurants, etc.) There is a nice mix of people and a lot of college students. Two complexes that I got by name were Camden Live Oaks, and the St. Croix Apartments. I have been to St. Croix and it's very nice, very new, and very chock full of hotties. Let me know how things work out.

Lobo, I find it hilarious you're moving to my old town, and now I've moved to New Orleans.

What's the price range? That's a big part of any further apartment choices. For really close, there are a few complexes literally across the street from campus, they've been building the place up recently. A lot of the more affordable places near campus have actually been bought up and converted to condos, or are in the process of being converted. Avalon is a place I've stayed, it's right across the street on Fletcher on the north side of campus. It's decent, there's private gated parking, a pool, and internet and utilities are included in the rent (but the internet was congested and was firewalled to the point of uselessness for gaming/networking). The management was horrible, depending on if it's the same people. I could ask a few people I know who still live there. It's also a college complex, so they pair you with roommates, which is a plus if you intend to have any. Do you intend to have a roommate? St. Croix is nice, but expensive. Campus Lodge is another Avalon-ish place, but avoid it. There's only one light on Livingston to get in or out of it, in the mornings it's so congested a 10 minute drive takes half an hour. Also, someone was shot and killed there right after I moved out. Bad history. On that note, avoid Fontana. You can't tell from the pictures, but it's nasty looking. It also has a minor history of suicide, and there was a heptatitis outbreak on one of the floors years back.

New Tampa is a very nice upscale suburb area. Lots of the areas closer to USF are more...ghetto. Like along Nebraska, which is called suitcase city and is where the homeless and hookers are. The parking on USF is god awful, and it's always been a problem. They sell as many tags as possible, and then it's first come, first serve. So I would consider living at a place in biking distance. The downside of biking would be that it rains...a lot. I know some of the people I work with here in NOLA complain about the rain, but Florida is different. During the rainy season it's constant, but off and on for 10-20 minute periods. Tampa IS the lightning capital of the world. I know they've also been expanding on the on-campus housing side. You interested in anything like that?

So, price range, roommates, and how far you're willing to commute and I'll ask around. Brandon, Riverview, and St. Pete/Clearwater are a bit of a drive, I wouldn't live there. Brandon is a 30 minute drive if you're lucky, but they've been building it up so the traffic is horrible now. Going from the mall, which is literally a stone's throw from the highway, to the actual highway, can take 20 minutes. Riverview is a bit more off the beaten path, but will take you around 30 minutes or more too. St. Pete and Clearwater would be insane unless you plan to attend a different USF campus.

I did about a 185 mile round trip yesterday, going from client to client from South Dade all the way north to West Palm Beach and it was just nasty. One second it's sunny, the next it looks worse than Hurricane Andrew.

Note that Equestrian Parc is in the box for New Tampa.

Too awesome for words, Scritch. Thanks.

Edwin, I'm not totally sure, but I think Equestrian Parc and Highland Lake have both migrated to condos. I'll call them to check.

I talked to the guys I work with at Moffit, and they pretty much echoed what unntrlaffinity said.

Sorry to have been late and have no new info....

Oh, and if you read comics, check out Green Shift. I went there for around 10 years, until I moved away. I miss it, never found a shop that was quite as good. The Sound Exchange is a good cd shop, even if I prefer their Brandon location.