The Florida Trail

Our full-color coffee table book recounting the beauty and history of the Florida Trail: The Florida Trail: Florida’s National Scenic Trail

First Place, Outdoor Book. Florida Outdoor Writers Association, 2017

Highlights | What’s Inside | Sample Pages | Order Form

It starts in a swamp, and ends on a beach. It has no mountains, but it is the most botanically diverse trail in the United States. The Florida Trail stretches 1,400 miles across two time zones in a single state.

In 1966, a small group of trailblazers started painting blazes in several Florida locations to provide Floridians with a place to go backpacking.

A ribbon of federally-protected footpath between two national parks, Big Cypress National Preserve and Gulf Islands National Seashore, the Florida Trail is a National Scenic Trail like no other. Founded in 1966, the Florida Trail became part of the National Trail System in 1983.

In 2016, the Florida Trail – and the organization that built and continues to maintain it, the Florida Trail Association – turned 50 years old.

To commemorate this milestone, we spent a decade interviewing over a hundred of trail maintainers, key volunteers, and long distance hikers hikers.

We dug through both private and public archives for historic images, and worked to create a comprehensive history of both the trail and the association that made it happen.

It is a showy 9×12″ coffee table book with 228 pages in full color. It includes 725 color images and 79 black and white images.

The imagery draws on both our personal photography of the Florida Trail and archival images from a variety of sources, including the Florida Trail Association. It was printed in United States.

Two editions are available:

• A limited edition hardcover of 250 copies, signed by the authors and numbered; less than half remain.
• A less expensive softcover version ideal for gifts or for your library of trail books.

Highlights

Among the book’s many pages of history, photos of the trail and its builders, and stories from hikers and FTA members, you’ll also find:

• A full page 2016 map of the Florida Trail.
• A section devoted to the sections of the Florida Trail, with contemporary images.
• A photo gallery of all Florida Trail System trails, with GPS coordinates to trailheads.
• A bibliography of all books written about the Florida Trail.
• Photos and stories from the first hikers to walk end-to-end on the Florida Trail.
• Photos and stories from Florida Trail thru-hikers.
• Full rosters of recipients of the Florida Trail Association’s top awards: Cornelia Burge Award, John Weary Trail Worker Award, and Lifetime Achievement Award
• A photo gallery and timeline for all FTA Presidents.
• Historic maps, dating back as far as 1969.
• A photo gallery of 16 years of Florida Trail themed quilts by Linda Benton.
• A list of all FTA Chapters and when they were established.
• Images of most of the patches issued by the Florida Trail Association.
• A six page index, which includes everyone we were able to identify in photos.