NPS Sites Near Tampa
Tampa, Florida is situated within driving range of four National Park Service units. The closest is De Soto National Memorial, located 42 miles away, which received 124,294 annual recreation visits. Farther south along Florida's coast lies Canaveral National Seashore at 118 miles from Tampa, the most heavily visited site in the region with 2.5 million annual visits. Fort Matanzas National Monument and Castillo de San Marcos National Monument are both located in the St. Augustine area, approximately 135 and 143 miles away respectively.
Fort Matanzas attracted 653,152 annual recreation visits, while Castillo de San Marcos received 598,070 visits annually. All four sites are accessible by car within a few hours of Tampa and offer different historical and natural resource experiences, ranging from Spanish colonial fortifications to coastal ecosystems and early European settlement sites in Florida.
| NPS unit | Annual visits |
|---|---|
| De Soto National Memorial · 41.9 mi | 124,294 (2025) |
| Canaveral National Seashore · 117.7 mi | 2,496,947 (2025) |
| Fort Matanzas National Monument · 134.6 mi | 653,152 (2025) |
| Castillo De San Marcos National Monument · 143.0 mi | 598,070 (2025) |
Tampa attractions & passes → · Top attractions in Tampa →
Nearby-NPS units and their annual recreation visits are from the NPS Visitor Use Statistics package (haversine match within 150 mi of the city centroid), verified June 2026. Null visitation renders as “n/a”, never 0. How we compile this.