What should I avoid in St. Petersburg?

Johns Pass Village in Madeira Beach, about 20 minutes north of downtown St. Petersburg, markets itself as a working fishing village. It's mostly shell shops and T-shirt stands with a boardwalk smell of fryer grease. The waterfront restaurants charge $16-18 for fish tacos you can get better versions of at Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish on Pasadena Avenue South for $12. Ted Peters has been smoking mullet and mackerel over red oak since 1951, and the smell of wood smoke carries across the gravel parking lot before you even see the building. Beach Drive downtown is St. Petersburg's waterfront showpiece, and Saturday dinner without a reservation means 60-90 minute waits at most sit-down spots. Worth noting, the same grouper sandwich that costs $22 on Beach Drive runs about $15 three blocks inland on Central Avenue.

Gulf Boulevard is the only road linking St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island, and Madeira Beach to the mainland. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons from March through October, it turns into a parking lot. A 6-mile drive from downtown St. Petersburg to St. Pete Beach takes 15 minutes on a Tuesday and can stretch past 50 on a Saturday. The SunRunner bus rapid transit line covers the same route in about 35 minutes for $2.25, with dedicated lanes for much of the trip. It beats driving on busy days. If you do take a car, arrive before 10am or after 5pm. Metered spots along Gulf Way fill by 11am on weekends at $2 per hour. Fort De Soto Park, about 20 minutes south, has North Beach with calmer water and fewer people. Parking there is $5 flat for the whole day.

From June through September, thunderstorms build over Tampa Bay almost daily, usually between 2pm and 5pm. The sky shifts from clear blue to a dark gray-green wall in about 20 minutes, and the temperature drops 5-8 degrees when the rain hits. Lightning is the real danger. Pinellas County sees roughly 25 cloud-to-ground strikes per square mile each year, and open beach offers no shelter. If you hear thunder, get off the sand and into a solid building, not a pavilion or a beach tent. The storms pass in 30-45 minutes and leave that petrichor smell rising off hot concrete. Red tide is the other thing worth checking for. Karenia brevis algae blooms show up most often between August and December along St. Petersburg's Gulf beaches. The toxins sting your eyes, tighten your throat, and the dead-fish smell can carry a quarter mile inland on the wind. Mote Marine Laboratory posts daily beach conditions at visitbeaches.org.

Downtown St. Petersburg is walkable, but the feel changes quickly. Beach Drive and Bayshore Drive along the waterfront stay lit and active most evenings. South of Central Avenue past the Grand Central District, foot traffic drops off. The blocks around Tropicana Field between 16th and 34th Streets South currently have limited nighttime activity and thinner street lighting. That said, it's not a safety concern so much as a navigation one. Central Avenue and everything north of it is where the restaurants, bars, and foot traffic concentrate after 10pm. The last thing worth flagging has nothing to do with neighborhoods. The UV index in St. Petersburg reaches 10-11 from May through September, and overcast skies are deceptive. At today's 91% humidity with air at 24°C feeling like 28°C, bare skin burns in 12-15 minutes between 10am and 4pm.