St Petersburg, Florida makes Yachting magazine's Best Yachting Towns list

St Petersburg Municipal Pier & Marina

St Petersburg is in the running for Yachting magazine’s Best Yachting Town! This is the first year for this contest and it has been narrowed down to 50 international semi-finalist cities. The magazine hopes to make this an annual competition.

There are 6 towns in Florida included on the list: St Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale, Islamorada, Key West, Punta Gorda and Stuart. It is interesting to me that the areas that I have lived over the years are all on the list. Maryland, where I grew up has 2 towns, Annapolis & Oxford. I lived in the Virgin Islands for a while & New Sound, Virgin Gorda made the list. Then I lived in California for 20 years & of course, several towns in California are the list: Monterey, San Francisco, Tiburon, San Diego, Newport Beach. Now I live in St Petersburg. I absolutely MUST live near the water!

It’s quite an international list. The cities outside of the USA include Bocas Del Toro, Panama; Puerto William, Isla Navarino, Chile; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; Horta, Faial, Azores; Poole, UK; and Sidney, British Columbia, Canada .

AmericanStyle magazine put St. Petersburg at the top of its list of 25 Arts Destinations for midsize cities this year. (It is the second year in a row.) Maybe we’ll get Yachting magazine’s top Yachting Town designation too. St Pete does have a great waterfront with marinas, yacht clubs, restaurants, theatres & museums. Boaters have been coming here for many years. The St. Petersburg Yacht Club, founded in 1909, has a very competitive racing schedule for smaller sailboats starting in January and ending in early May. Each year, the club also hosts more than 50 regattas.