Florida...Tallahassee or Panama City/or Beach
 

My husband and I are doing a road trip in September. After Nashville for 3 nights, we will head to Florida. Was considering stopping at either Tallahassee or Panama City or Beach for the night and a brief time there. Does anyone have thoughts on which would be better? After that we would head to Tampa where we will be for 3 nights. Hoping to explore the West Coast in that short time. Looks like Sarasota, Fort meyers, Naples and Coral Gables and even St. Pertersburg are all within reasonable distance. Would welcome any advise as to whether that sounds doable and/or how we could alter that. We are headed to Key West at that point.
We are both YOUNG seniors, and enjoy the beach, fun pubs and bars, good food, historic landmarks, and nature in general.
Appreciate any help you can give me. I've planned about 5 road trips over the years, and for some reason I'm having more trouble reaching conclusions with this one.
Thanks

Depends on whether you want more beach time. Personally, I would opt for Tallahassee (unless you would be there at the same time as an FSU home football game).

The rest of your post is a bit confusing. Are you intending to spend 3 nights in Tampa and use it as a base for exploring SW Florida during those 3 days, and then head to Key West? If so, you should stick to St. Pete and maybe Sarasota and forget the rest.

If you want to see all (or at least some of) the places you mention, it's better to take those 3 days and head down the SW coast from Tampa toward Key West, stopping in Sarasota, Ft. Myers, Naples, or wherever you want. Other posters can give you lots of advice on what to see in that part of Florida.

Note that Coral Gables is on the Atlantic, down by Miami, and not on the Gulf or near Tampa. You could stop there on the way to Key West as well, of course.

If you're only stopping for the night and intend on taking the interstates to Tampa, I would say Tallahassee. If you want to stop on the coast, I would say go to Apalachicola and then drive Hwy 98 down to the Tampa area.

Thanks Cranachin and Austin Traveler. Sorry about the Coral Gables thing. I realized I had mispoken shortly after posting.
Anyway, yes! Was going to make Tampa our "home base" for those three days. Was not necessarily trying to fit in all the sites, just trying to decide what to include and what to skip. Appreciate the suggestions re St. Pete and Sarasota. Any "do not miss" things either place? Do love the beach, but a myriad of other things as well,so are open to just about anything.
Guess I can find USF football schedule on line somewhere?
Tallahassee suggestions? Apaladhicola suggestions?

I am writing at this minute from the Coombs House Inn in Apalachicola. It is very pleasant if you like B&B's and is an easy walk to the waterfront (3 blocks?). Delicious breakfast and the first drinkable coffee we have had since arriving in Florida on Wednesday.

We enjoyed great seafood last night among lots of characters at the Hole in The Wall, we had a fancy lunch at the Owl Cafe today and are having a fancy dinner at Ira's tonight because very few restaurants are open on Sundays. We had lunch yesterday at Up the Creek, and it was bad.


I would urge you to drive 14 miles past Tallahassee to the Wakulla Springs State Park. Read about it in Wikipedia, then google their site. It is on the banks of a river that springs full-blown from the ground to the tune of 200,000 gallons per minute.

We stayed at the Lodge and took a boat tour run by the park rangers that was the best one hour wildlife tour I have ever taken. It would be a great overnight/morning. Do not stay on the weekend because it is packed.

Two notes. One is to consider trip insurance for any place you reserve in advance because September is hurricane season. The second is that we have found both Google maps and our GPS have let us down at crucial times. The very tall forests close to the highway mean that we have lost satellite signals frequently. Google maps keeps giving us directions including street names, and the routes are only marked by number.