{"id":276629,"date":"2026-05-19T14:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/276629\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T14:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:23:09","slug":"my-favorite-florida-bert-kreischer-loves-a-tampa-made-cigar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/276629\/","title":{"rendered":"My Favorite Florida: Bert Kreischer loves a Tampa-made cigar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bert Kreischer is a comedian, actor and podcaster<\/a> who grew up in Tampa and attended Florida State University in Tallahassee. His series \u201cFree Bert,\u201d<\/a> in which he plays a fictionalized version of himself as he tries to tone down his famously wild and shirtless lifestyle for his family, was just renewed for a second season on Netflix.<\/p>\n

Now 53, Kreischer has in recent years, he said, developed a deeper appreciation for his home state. He got on the phone to share his three favorite slices of Florida culture.<\/p>\n

Cigars in Ybor: To say that cigar culture wasn\u2019t created or founded in Tampa is insane. Tampa is ground zero for everything cigar. I am going through a crazy cigar phase right now, and I regret not paying more attention to Ybor City when I was a kid. I\u2019m fascinated by companies like J.C. Newman and Arturo Fuente. You should take a cigar rolling class<\/a>, learn what makes a great cigar and immerse yourself in everything that is Ybor City.<\/p>\n

\u2018Tubing\u2019 on a spring-fed river: Florida\u2019s west coast has the most beautiful beaches in the world, but if you want to spend no money and have the best time of your life, you\u2019ve got to go camping in the middle of the state, in Central Florida, just outside Gainesville. Go tubing with your whole family down the Ichetucknee River<\/a>. Doing it in college it cost us maybe $15 for a couple of tubes from a gas station and a case of beer. It is one of the funnest ways to spend a day. You will see an alligator. It will not mess with you. The springs are insane and water is so clear you can see the bottom.<\/p>\n

Going to Miami: If you want to spend not as much money as a flight to Europe, but you want to go to Europe and be Euro trash, you\u2019ve got to go to Miami. Miami is a country in and of itself. Miami is a place that no one in Florida goes to. Only people that go to Miami go to Miami. Or you live in Miami and you never leave Miami. But you can travel around the world within one day in Miami going from Little Haiti to Little Havana to South Beach. The accents, the people watching, the food \u2014 as someone who grew up in Florida and never appreciated Miami until I was an adult, it\u2019s f—ing incredible.<\/p>\n

Have an idea for someone we should feature in My Favorite Florida? Email cspata@tampabay.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bert Kreischer is a comedian, actor and podcaster who grew up in Tampa and attended Florida State University…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[63626,67498,28,1422,118125,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-276629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-bert-kreischer","tag-cigars","tag-florida","tag-florida-state-university","tag-free-bert","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}