Florida City Ranked in Top for ‘Best Cities to Drive In’

To be honest, most drivers in the Tampa area would not consider it one of the best places to drive in the US. It might come as a shocker to many, but the Florida city ranked in top for best cities to drive, was Tampa. 

Driving through downtown Tampa can be a nightmare especially during the rush hour commute. Based on this survey done by WalletHub, they rank Tampa at number 13 and St. Petersburg at 28. 

The WalletHub survey looked at many different factors when putting together this list. What is the cost of ownership and maintenance of a car in Tampa? What is the traffic and infrastructure like? How safe are the roads? What is the access to vehicles and maintenance like?

What was it that made Tampa such a good city to drive in? Well, Tampa had an overall score of 62.35. This is a D- Average right? Actually, Corpus Christi, TX earned the number 1 spot with a score of 68.50 which isn’t much higher than Tampa. Tampa ranks 34th of cost of ownership and maintenance, 26th in traffic and infrastructure, and 56th in safety (yikes). But why does Tampa rank so high in the overall score? Tampa lands the number 3 spot for access to vehicles and maintenance.

To make this list, WalletHub took the 100 largest cities in the USA and compared them across 30 different key indicators. The data in this set consists of things like the average gas prices, annual hours in traffic per commuter, and the amount of auto shops per head. They based each ranking on a 100 point scale and took the weighted average of all key indicators to determine the final rankings.

Top 15 cities to drive in:

For the full breakdown of the best cities to drive in, click here.

This "Welcome to Florida" sign is in some residents' rearview mirror, as we're noticing some residents are moving out of the Sunshine State.

In 2022, 490,000 moved out of Florida. So where did all of these people relocate to? We'll get into that. But first, we've got to point out that Florida is usually a place that people relocate to. Maybe someone wants to come down and enjoy the Florida weather. I know plenty of Midwesterners and northeasterners who have made a weather-related decision about their move. Folks who are retiring often move to Florida to enjoy the weather and recreation, as well. How about all of the people who want to come to Florida to enjoy our state that doesn't force us to pay state income tax? Some have chosen Florida as their new home after living in other states that enforced strict regulations during Covid, causing people to lose jobs and businesses.

But there are some residents moving who said goodbye to Florida. If you're interested in state-to-state migration stats from last year we can share them. The U.S Census Bureau put out new numbers this week.

The five most popular places Florida residents were moving to in 2022 were: Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, California, and Tennessee.

Would you believe almost 35,000 people moved to North Carolina from Florida? Almsot 30,000 moved to California. And about 25,000 moved to Tennessee.

And if your curious about which state is the least popular state for Florida residents to move to, it's South Dakota. Only 300 or so (former) Florida residents there made the trek to South Dakota.

Now tons of people did move out of California and relocated to Texas. And we know we had an enormous influx of New Yorkers into Florida. 91,000 people, to be precise. Check out our list of the top five places Floridian residents were moving to.

For more on this story, click here.

Why in the world did 51,000 people choose to move out of Florida to Georgia? Sounds crazy to me. Have fun rooting for the Falcons!

How many people moved out of Florida to head to Texas? 41,747. Well, I guess if your thought process is bigger is better, than Texas is your place.

I can relate to this move. If I were going to move from Florida to any other state, it would be North Carolina. The weather and the mountains are gorgeous in the Carolinas.

What kind of crazy are the people who moved FROM Florida to California? And how rich are they??? It's a beautiful place, but the cost of living is enough to keep me out of Cali.

I'm guessing if you moved from Florida to Tennessee that you are a music lover. I've heard great things about Nashville and the music scene. And the mountains in Tennessee are beautiful.