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Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides

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New Port Richey

Once a mecca for silent film stars, New Port Richey provides adventures along the Pithlachascotee and Anclote River basins and coastal estuaries with salt springs

New Port Richey mural

Exploring New Port Richey

With a downtown residential district straight out of the 1920s, New Port Richey grabbed the attention of the movie industry before “talkies” were invented. Growing up along the shores of the Pithlachascotee River, it edged a vast Gulf Coast estuary where fishing was a livelihood. Over the past half-century, the town sprawled out and spun off suburbs up and down busy US 19.

But wild spaces remain. The most notable of them are the wilderness areas along the Gulf Coast, including Pasco Palms Preserve and the Robert Crown Wilderness Area, both popular with paddlers. At Werner-Boyce Salt Springs State Park, you can walk right up to a half dozen springs along their trail system, or follow the winding waterways up along a wild shore.

To the east, where ranchlands once dominated the vast floodplains of the Anclote and Pithlachascotee Rivers, Starkey Wilderness Park, Seranova Preserve, and other water management lands create and buffer a corridor for wildlife against the constant addition of subdivisions along the Suncoast Parkway. Paralleling the Parkway, the Suncoast Trail is part of the statewide Florida Coast to Coast Trail.

Resources

50 Hikes in Central Florida Central Florida Orlando Explorers Guide book cover Hikers Guide to the Sunshine State book cover Complete Guide to Florida Wildflowers

Disclosure: As authors and affiliates, we receive earnings when you buy these through our links. This helps us continue to provide public information on this website.

Featured Destinations

Crews Lake Park

Crews Lake Wilderness Park

Crews Lake Wilderness Park
Key Vista Nature Park waterfront

Key Vista Nature Park

Key Vista Nature Park
Brooker Creek Preserve Friends Trail

The Friends Trail

The Friends Trail
Anclote Key

Anclote Key Preserve State Park

Anclote Key Preserve State Park
Beach at Honeymoon Island

Honeymoon Island State Park

Honeymoon Island State Park
Blue sky and palm reflected in river

James E Grey Preserve

James E Grey Preserve

Caladesi Island Trail

Caladesi Island Trail
Anclote Gulf Park boardwalk

Anclote Gulf Park

Anclote Gulf Park

ALL Destinations

Articles

50 Hikes Central Florida graphic

The new 50 Hikes in Central Florida

October 5, 2018//  by Sandra Friend

We launched a new full-color edition of 50 Hikes in Central Florida at the National Trails Festival in Deland the first weekend of October. Take a peek inside.

Lunchtime underwater at Weeki Wachee

Three Days of Nature Coast Springs

October 10, 2014//  by Sandra Friend

Between New Port Richey and Crystal River, explore a variety of springs along the Nature Coast that provide splashing fun in summer and manatee watching in winter.

Grand opening of Conner Preserve

January 17, 2009//  by Sandra Friend

When I saw the billboards pop up in downtown Tampa a few years ago touting “Connerton, FL, ” with images of herons and trees, I thought … here we ago again. Create a city in the middle of a rural area and invite sprawl. Indeed, it was a development of regional impact, as they are …

ALL Articles

INCLUDES: Bayonet Point, Elfers, Holiday, Hudson, Odessa, Port Richey | NEARBY: Brooksville, Dade City, Spring Hill, Tampa, Tarpon Springs | PART OF: Central Florida

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