With its highlight an observation tower providing you a sweeping view of Boca Ciega Bay, Boca Ciega Millennium Park is a popular family-friendly getaway in Pinellas County.
It has a gentle boardwalk and footpath showcasing the succession of coastal habitats from mangroves to pine flatwoods through coastal strand and maritime forest.
It’s always breezy here, and dog-friendly too, with a dog park on site.
There is fantastic birding along the boardwalk, plenty of picnic pavilions, a playground, a canoe launch, fishing along the shoreline, and a paved bicycle trail paralleling the entrance road, passing wetland areas.
Resources
Overview
Location: Seminole
Length: 1.3 mile loop
Trailhead: 27.832033, -82.810600
Address: 12410 74th Ave. N. (Old Oakhurst Rd.) Seminole
Fees: Free
Restroom: Flush toilets
Land Manager: Pinellas County
Phone: 727-582-2100
Leashed dogs welcome.
Directions
From US 19 in Pinellas Park, follow Park Blvd (CR 694) west into Seminole, crossing US 19A. Continue west to 74th Ave N (Old Oakhurst Rd) and turn left. Turn left on 125th St; the park entrance is on the right. Continue along the park road to the parking area for Shelter 3 & 4. The boardwalk starts behind the restrooms.
Hike
If you follow the boardwalk to the T intersection and turn left, you can walk down to an overlook over a small pond encompassed by large pines. Return along the boardwalk.
As it rises up into the mangrove marshes, you’ll reach the observation tower after 0.3 mile. Climb to the top and look out over Boca Ciega Bay to the barrier islands.
The boardwalk continues along the mangroves then loops back into the maritime hammock on the return trip, ending after 0.8 mile. If you keep to the right at the fork, you’ll return to the correct parking area.
The half-mile nature trail, the Fox Run Trail, starts in front of picnic pavilion 2 and loops through the pine flatwoods.
Since the bridges are broken, it looks to be abandoned and you must hop across the creek twice to follow the posts with white arrows that mark the loop.
Explore More!
Nearby Adventures
More worth exploring while you’re in this area.
Florida Botanical Gardens
Walk through the garden gates into a wonderland of sensory stimulation. With nearly 180 acres in the heart of Largo, the Florida Botanical Gardens is a place for peaceful immersion.
Weedon Island Preserve
Tunneling through mangrove forests and palm hammocks to overlooks on Tampa Bay, the trails of Weedon Island Preserve offer unique perspectives for birders while interpreting one of Florida’s ancient settlements.
Sunken Gardens
One of Florida’s oldest roadside attractions, Sunken Gardens is now a county park showing off more than a century’s worth of botanical bounty in St. Petersburg
Boyd Hill Nature Preserve
Once a zoo in St. Petersburg, Boyd Hill Park has 3 miles of trails looping through a mosaic of natural habitats and tropical landscapes along Lake Maggiore.