Pine Island Ridge Natural Area
Davie 2.0 milesOnce part of a chain of islands in the Everglades, Pine Island Ridge is the highest natural elevation in Broward County, a home to indigenous cultures for over 5,000 years.

Once part of a chain of islands in the Everglades, Pine Island Ridge is the highest natural elevation in Broward County, a home to indigenous cultures for over 5,000 years.

An outdoor classroom for schoolchildren, Pine Jog Environmental Center is also open to the public to explore the deeply forested 135-acre urban property on an array of short nature trails.

Along the east side of Phillippi Creek within the historic Amish enclave of Pinecraft in Sarasota, Pinecraft Park blends nature and recreation.

Unnamed, un-blazed, and wild, on an old jeep road, the Pinelands Ecotone is an extraordinary hike between two rare habitats – pine rocklands and sawgrass prairies.

The Pinelands Trail is a showcase for South Florida’s weird and wonderful karst, a limestone bedrock that’s full of Swiss-cheese like holes, in a tropical forest where colorful tree snails make their home.

At Tarkiln Bayou State Park, the showy blooms of pitcher plants are on parade each spring. The boggy Perdido Pitcher Plant Prairie is ground zero for these beauties.

Adjoining Founders Park on Plantation Key, Plantation Hammocks Preserve showcases some of the Florida Keys most interesting flowers under a generous canopy of well-established tropical trees.

At the south end of Canaveral National Seashore, Playalinda Beach is a popular destination for beachgoers along the Space Coast thanks to its natural beaches and views of Kennedy Space Center.

Starting adjacent to the Visitor Center at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, the Plum Orchard Pond Trail is an easy half mile loop that takes you out along Plum Orchard Pond, a great birding stop.

At Poe Springs Park, the Poe Springs Nature Trail carries you across a landscape shaped by water acting on limestone, where surface rock is obvious and studded with fossils.

For the first time since the Big O Hike started in 1992, the Army Corps of Engineers denied our hikers access to the dike. So to kick off the 2011 Big O Hike, it's a roadwalk through Pahokee.

On a day hike into one of our state's largest prairies, sample Florida's own big sky at the state's first International Dark Sky Park.
