RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Florida >> Pinellas County >> Tarpon Springs >> Tidbits & TriviaIndex...

Outdoor Activities ...

As we travel, we like to pursue some of our interests (such as astronomy and bird watching).

When in Tarpon Springs, we use the following websites to find information relevant to Tarpon Springs and the surrounding area.

  • Weather ...
  • Astronomy & Satellites ...
    • Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
    • To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above, we pass this GPS location for Tarpon Springs:
    • 28.146282, -82.756671
    • Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
    • Open the Heavens-Above website centered on Tarpon Springs
  • Bird Watching ...
    • We enjoy finding new spots for bird watching and we use the eBird website for local sighting reports and to help identify hotspots.
    • The eBird website is organized on a county-by-county basis. We have selected Pinellas County as the starting point when you click on the link below:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Pinellas County
    • Since Tarpon Springs is near Pasco County and also Hillsborough County, we have provided a link to their eBird sighting reports:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Pasco County
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Hillsborough County
  • Waymarking ...
    • Looking for somewhere out of the ordinary? Find a unique place and want to share it with others? Then it's time to visit Waymarking.com:
    • Open the Waymark.com report for Tarpon Springs

Communities Also Named Tarpon Springs ...

We found one communities that are also named Tarpon Springs.

There is one other community in Florida that is also named Tarpon Springs.

Beyond Florida.

  • Communities Located In Florida ...
    • Hillsborough County
      • We found mention of this community, but have little information.<1> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Florida community of Tarpon Springs [Hillsborough County].

Curious and Interesting Names Near Tarpon Springs ...

As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.

How Far From Tarpon Springs to ...

We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers, Almanacs & Directories that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a city such as Tarpon Springs to various places of note, such as the White House.

With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance<3> beginning in Tarpon Springs and extending to:

  • Clearwater, which is the Seat of Pinellas County, lies 12 miles [19.3 km]<3> to the south. If you could walk a straight line from Tarpon Springs to Clearwater, with an average speed<4> of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour, it would take five to six hours to make the trip. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take nearly four hours.
  • Tallahassee, which is the State Capital of Florida, lies 182 miles [292.9 km] to the north northwest (NNW). Driving, with an average speed of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, would take a little over three hours, a buggy would take 8 days and walking would take 11 days.
  • The White House (Washington, DC) is 811 miles [1,305.2 km] to the north northeast (NNE). Driving would take just about two full days, a buggy would take 32 days and walking would take 46 days.
  • The shortest distance<5> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 6,624 miles [10,660.3 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<6>
  • The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 7,295 miles [11,740.2 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<7>
  • The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 5,192 miles [8,355.7 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<8>'

Footnotes ...

<1>If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer.

Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Mile's to see Pete ... Mile's is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.

Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.

Also keep in mind that Tarpon Springs could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Tarpon Springs) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<4>While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day.
<5>The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from Tarpon Springs to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Tarpon Springs. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 28.1463, Longitude: -82.7567    
<6>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 311.002 degrees.
<7>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 305.453 degrees.
<8>The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 309.946 degrees.