Part of Notes from the Road, our city-by-city series.
The short answer: Craigslist took its Personals section offline in the US on March 22, 2018, including in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. No single site replaced it. Personal ads in Florida now live on Reddit’s statewide r/Floridar4r and a few city boards, on classified-style sites such as Doublelist and SeekingList, in Locanto’s personals section, and in text-first apps including AseeksB. On October 7, 2026, we read the newest Miami, Tampa, and Orlando ads on three of them.
Florida is a long state to date in. Miami to Orlando is about three and a half hours by car, Orlando to Tampa another hour and a half, and each of the three has its own suburbs, seasons, and visitors. The busiest personals board here covers the whole state, so the first thing a Florida ad has to say is where you actually are.
A written ad does that well. It says which city, which side of it, and how far you will drive, before anyone gets on I-4 or the Turnpike.
The sites that replaced Craigslist Personals in other US cities serve Florida too. Here is how each works, from our checks on October 7, 2026:
For each city below, we read the 20 newest ads on Doublelist and Locanto, and SeekingList’s recent ads for that city, on October 7, 2026, and counted the escort ads. Passing this test doesn’t make an ad genuine: an ad can look ordinary and still try to move you to another app once you reply. Lex and AseeksB ads can’t be read without an account, so they weren’t counted. How we check.
AseeksB publishes this page and is included in it. For how each site handles the eight traits that defined Craigslist Personals, see our full comparison.
Coming from Reddit or a classified site? On AseeksB you still write an ad in your own words, but you choose who can see it, by gender and age; someone can send one message per post until you reply; and no photo or real name is needed. Posting, browsing, and replying are free. How AseeksB works.
“doublelist tampa” gets about 12,100 searches a month, up 22% on last year, “doublelist orlando” about 9,900, up 49%, “doublelist miami” about 2,400, and “doublelist fort lauderdale” about 1,600 (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). Doublelist has Miami, Tampa, and Orlando pages. Anyone can see ad titles, but reading a full ad needs an account. Posting is free for up to 3 posts, and seeing members’ photos takes a paid plan; its help center lists two, Hookup and Hardcore, at $45 and $90 a year.
On October 7, 2026, 6 of the 20 newest Miami ads were escort ads, 5 of the 20 in Tampa, and 8 of the 20 in Orlando. That is a snapshot of the newest ads on one day, not a measure of the whole site.
If you’re coming from Doublelist, AseeksB works differently: you choose who can see your post, by gender and age; someone can send one message per post until you reply; admins actively monitor posts; and posting, browsing, and replying are free. For more options, see sites like Doublelist.
Miami is a bilingual city: English and Spanish run side by side, often in the same conversation. The city is not one crowd, it is several, layered over the same beaches.
It looks compact on a map, but Brickell, the Beach, Wynwood, and Coral Gables are separated by causeways and a kind of traffic that turns three miles into forty minutes. Locals call it the 305, like one place, but it behaves like a dozen, and the winter crowd that arrives when the rest of the country gets cold makes “nearby” a moving target. A personal ad pins it down: your neighborhood, your scene, the months you are around, in whichever language you think in.
What we found. Doublelist’s Miami page was busy: all of its 20 newest ads had been posted that day, and 6 were escort ads. On Locanto, 12 of the 20 were escort ads, all posted as women: every women’s ad in the 20. The 8 men’s ads looked like ordinary personal ads. SeekingList had only 16 Miami ads in all, and 14 were escort ads or gave phone numbers, one of them an ad that has appeared in every city we have checked.
Reddit and Craigslist. Miami’s own board, r/MiamiR4R, is private, and its listing points to r/Floridar4r, so that is where most Miami posts go. Craigslist Miami’s missed connections section, under Community, had 13 posts from August to October 7, all apparently genuine missed connections.
Beyond the apps. Speed-dating companies hold age-banded nights in Miami, among them Date Faster, which lists its events on Eventbrite.
Tampa Bay is really three cities, Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, strung around the water and joined by bridges. The Howard Frankland at rush hour decides more first dates than anyone admits, so it helps to say which side of the bay you are on. It is also where Florida searches for personals run highest: “tampa personals” gets about 590 searches a month, against about 50 for “miami personals” (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026).
What we found. Doublelist’s Tampa page had a steady stream of new posts, and 5 of the 20 newest were escort ads. On Locanto, 5 were, all posted as women: every women’s ad in the 20, some of them ads we had seen in other cities. The men’s ads looked like ordinary personal ads. SeekingList had only 11 Tampa Bay ads; the 3 posted as women were escort ads, including the one we have now seen in every city.
Reddit and Craigslist. Tampa’s own board, r/TampaFLr4r, is smaller than the statewide one: about 4,900 followers, with about 5,400 weekly visitors and 756 weekly contributions on Reddit’s count. It had no posted rules when we checked, comments were open, and the posts we saw included explicit photos. r/Floridar4r covers Tampa Bay too. Craigslist Tampa Bay’s missed connections had 2 posts, both genuine.
Beyond the apps. Tampa Bay Singles Events, a Meetup group hosted by the speed-dating company Pre-Dating, had about 6,600 members in October 2026, and runs Tampa speed dating for people in their 20s and 30s and for over-40s.
Orlando lives two lives: the one visitors see along International Drive and the parks, and the one in Winter Park, Lake Nona, Kissimmee, and the suburbs, where the people who work there live. A personal ad here should say which Orlando you mean, and whether you live here or are in town for the week.
What we found. Doublelist’s Orlando page was busy too, and 8 of the 20 newest were escort ads. On Locanto, 10 were, all posted as women: every women’s ad in the 20, some of them seen in other cities. SeekingList had 13 Orlando ads, a few of them duplicates; 7 were posted as women, and 1 was an escort ad, the same one we have seen everywhere.
Reddit and Craigslist. Orlando has two active boards. r/orlandor4r covers Orlando and Central Florida, with about 61,600 followers and, on Reddit’s count, about 13,000 weekly visitors and 663 weekly contributions. Titles need your age and an R4R tag, contact details of any kind are removed (even in watermarks), your messages have to be switched on, accounts must be at least 24 hours old with at least 5 karma, selling content or services is banned, and you can post once every 24 hours. Comments are closed, so replies go by private message, and the posts we read were ordinary personal ads. r/OrlandoCasualR4R, with about 58,400 followers, is for casual posts: titles need your age, tag, and a hashtag for your area, such as #LakeNona, you can post once a day, no selling or paid services are allowed, and members can verify with the moderators. Both boards are marked as adult and allow explicit photos. Craigslist Orlando’s missed connections had 2 posts, both genuine.
Beyond the apps. Pre-Dating also runs Orlando speed dating, with nights for people in their 30s and 40s and in their 50s and 60s. For more ways to meet people, with or without an app, see our guide to alternatives to dating apps.
r/Floridar4r covers the rest of the state. Titles have to name your city or county, so searching the board for Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers, Gainesville, Jacksonville, or Pensacola finds the posts near you. The classified sites above have pages for most Florida cities, and AseeksB works anywhere in the state, with the distance shown on every post.
Craigslist still has missed connections sections for all three, under Community, and Miami’s is the busiest: on October 7, 2026, it had 13 posts since August, all apparently genuine missed connections. Tampa Bay’s and Orlando’s had 2 each. Searches are small too: about 140 a month each for “tampa missed connections” and “orlando missed connections,” and about 70 for Miami (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026).
AseeksB has a missed connections category too: say where and when, and only the audience you choose can see the post. For how to write one the right person will recognize, see our guide to missed connections.
Craigslist has had no Personals section in Florida since March 2018, and searches for it have mostly faded: “craigslist personals tampa,” the biggest, fell 86% over the past year (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). Its missed connections sections are still there, busiest in Miami; more below. Which site comes closest to Craigslist depends on what you used it for: reading ads without signing up, replying without a match, or staying anonymous. Our Craigslist alternatives comparison lets you pick those traits and shows which sites still have them. If you came looking for Doublelist or Locanto in Florida, the numbers above are what we found; for more, see sites like Doublelist and sites like Locanto.
Florida’s winter crowd makes “nearby” a moving target, so Supporters can choose whether people visiting Florida can see a post, and every post shows how far away it was posted.
One honest difference: AseeksB ads can only be read inside the app after signing up, unlike Reddit’s boards and most of the classified sites above. That is the trade for choosing exactly who sees each post.
Every post makes AseeksB busier for the next person in Florida. Post what you’re looking for, and if there’s a feature you’d want, tell us through the app, from the profile tab; we’d love to hear it.
Text-first personal ads for Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and the rest of Florida, in your own words, with distance and other controls in Supporter.
No single site did. Craigslist took its Personals section offline in the US on March 22, 2018, after Congress passed FOSTA, including in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. People in Florida now post on Reddit’s statewide r/Floridar4r and a few city boards, on classified-style sites such as Doublelist and SeekingList, in Locanto’s personals section, and in text-first apps such as Lex and AseeksB. They differ mainly in who can read your ad and how replies reach you.
Yes, r/Floridar4r, which covers the whole state and had about 150,800 members in October 2026. Titles start with your age, an R4R tag, and your Florida city or county, all contact starts on Reddit, and you can post once every 24 hours. Miami’s own board, r/MiamiR4R, is private. Orlando has r/orlandor4r and r/OrlandoCasualR4R, and Tampa has r/TampaFLr4r.
Yes, it has pages for all three. Anyone can see ad titles, but reading a full ad needs an account. When we read the 20 newest ads in each city on October 7, 2026, 6 were escort ads in Miami, 5 in Tampa, and 8 in Orlando. All three were busy: every one of Miami’s 20 had been posted that day.
Craigslist still has missed connections sections under Community. On October 7, 2026, Miami’s had 13 posts since August, and Tampa’s and Orlando’s had 2 each, all apparently genuine missed connections. AseeksB also has a missed connections category.
Yes. AseeksB is a free personal ads app for iOS and Android, and it works anywhere in the state. Every post shows how far away it was posted, anyone can search by distance, and Supporters can also set a maximum distance on their own posts. A free account keeps one active post, and someone can send one message per post until you reply.