SS American Victory Mariners’ Memorial and Museum Ship

You’ve partied in Miami and you’ve tanned on Daytona, but you’re not ready to leave Florida yet – well, if you make a trip to Tampa, you won’t have to. What many visitors (and some Floridians themselves) don’t realize is that Tampa is teeming with inventive museums that cover a diverse range of topics, from photography to WWII. You already know there’s a lot to do in Tampa, now let’s explore what we can learn too.
Not an ornate house of botany as the name suggests, the Henry B. Plant Museum is actually a museum dedicated to the building’s past life as the grand Tampa Bay Hotel in the late 1900s. The museums exhibits explore the period of Gilded Age tourism through the elite lifestyle of the old hotel’s guests. The opulent ambiance is immediately set in motion by the museum’s facade, a Victorian-era architectural masterpiece with pewter filigreed arches and soaring silver minarets.Today, it finds itself as part of the University of Tampa campus (whilst the South Wing houses the museum, many other rooms in the building are used as university offices and classrooms), and as such stands as a visually stunning reminder of today’s support of universal knowledge over minority elitism.
Address and phone number: University of Tampa Campus, 401 West Kennedy Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33602 +1 813-254-1891
If you check the Tampa Bay History Center’s calendar of events, you’ll notice that pretty much all of them have been sold out – that should give you a clue as to how popular this historic gem is. It’s a textbook on Tampa Bay come to life, with interactive exhibits on every floor. Costumed guides tell you humorous stories of Tampa Bay’s intriguing history, and curated collections of arts, artifacts and films animate the Bay’s unforgettable past. Whether you’re new to Tampa or you’ve lived there all your life, there’s certainly something to learn at the History Center.
Address and phone number:801 Old Water Street, Tampa, FL 33602 +1 813-228-0097