Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Our comprehensive list of Florida State Parks, which range from vast preserves for wildlife protection to beaches, trails, greenways, and historic sites.
Stretched thin and long to follow the convoluted shoreline of Charlotte Harbor, Charlotte Harbor Preserve State Park encompasses more than 60 miles of coastline along the Gulf Coast.
It was meant to be a national park, the largest natural hammock of royal palms in the United States, set aside by developer Barron Collier during his push to create the Tamiami Trail across the Everglades. The Federal government wasn’t interested, so the state of Florida stepped in and created Collier-Seminole State Park, which opened in 1947.
A former 5,000-acre cattle ranch in the midst of the Green Swamp Wilderness Area, headwaters to the Hillsborough, Peace, Ocklawaha, and Withlacoochee Rivers, Colt Creek State Park is a mosaic of wetlands and uplands with extensive forest roads serving as trails
At the Constitution Convention Museum State Park, interpretive exhibits and artifacts put a face on Florida’s frontier days, with a special focus on the historic city of St. Joseph (now Port St. Joe).
Stretching 90 miles from the St. Johns River near Palatka to the Gulf of Mexico, the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway is a mile-wide recreational corridor with hiking, biking, and equestrian trails as well as paddling and boating access.
At Crystal River Archaeological State Park, a paved interpretive trail winds through a ceremonial mound complex built more than 2,500 years ago. The park is the home of Florida’s only petroglyph.
Established as an aquatic preserve to protect the sensitive estuaries between Crystal River, a spring-fed major river frequented by manatees, and the Gulf of Mexico, Crystal River Preserve State Park spans 20 miles of the Gulf Coast between Yankeetown and Homosassa.
Bring your binoculars for fall birding at Curry Hammock State Park, where migrating raptors cruise overhead by the hundreds following a major flyover route.
The Second Seminole War began amid the longleaf pines at Dade Battlefield Historic State Park, where on December 25, 1835, Major Francis Dade left Fort Brooke – located in what would become Tampa -and led his troops north on the military road to Fort King, Ocala.
Grab a spatula and start flipping pancakes! Once a Florida roadside attraction, De Leon Springs State Park still draws big crowds for its unique make-your-own-pancake restaurant with griddle top tables, set inside a historic sugar mill.
At Deer Lake State Park, the coastal flatwoods ecosystem hosts rare pitcher plants, Gulf Coast lupine and stately magnolias along a coastal dune lake, with beach access along the Gulf of Mexico at Alys Beach.
Swift tides rolling through Wiggins Pass define the northernmost beach of Naples, a spread of sun-drenched sand at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park within sight of a line of condos that stretch southward.
