I’m looking for a cool neighborhood walkable to restaurants and pubs within about 30 minutes from the Tampa airport

Walkable to cool restaurants and budget are the two primary limiters here…

There’s only a couple places in Tampa that fit that description: South Tampa / South Howard / Hyde Park, where you will likely won’t find that size house for the budget, and Seminole Heights, where you can find that as long as you are ok with older style 1920s wood frame historic homes. There’s borderline areas close to South Howard (between Kennedy and I275) however calling that walkable would be a very generous description. Ybor qualifies as well for “cool” but it’s not very residential or peaceful.

We don’t have more of these types of areas because by and large Tampa was mostly built after the advent of cars and distinct residential / commercial zoning. St Pete has a few, but again, budget is likely to be problematic. Commute to Airport would be doable.

So the question then would be, Is Seminole Heights suitable to your taste? If so, then great! You can focus your search there.

If not then we need to widen the circle out and start looking at residential areas with some charm and appeal. In Tampa that’d be places like Carrollwood, Westchase (though borderline budget issue there). Temple Terrace but commute to airport starts to get a bit lengthy. St Pete side you have Feather Sound, most of St Pete up to about US19 / 34th and north of Downtown, Safety Harbor (which is pretty awesome I must admit).

I’ll pm you a very handy drivetime tool so you can see commute times. Works a lot better than Google Maps’ one.

Flood wise most of Tampa doesn’t have much flood concern (especially the areas in question), St Pete yes you will find more areas in flood zones along 4th street and east as well as around the Gateway Mall area.