Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
A suburb of Tampa, Brandon provides a gateway to public lands in rural east Hillsborough County and along the Alafia River basin
Looping through a former phosphate mine north of the Alafia River, this hike showcases the resilience of nature as the forest reclaims the land.
With a vast network of trails to choose from, the southern side of the Alafia River Corridor provides multiple routes for hiking and horseback riding.
Alafia River State Park lets you launch on a Florida downhill while mountain biking the rugged terrain of a reforested open pit mine.
Straddling the confluence of the North and South Prong of the Alafia River, Alderman’s Ford Conservation Park provides immersion into lush riverine forests.
Alderman’s Ford Preserve offers a surprising treat for a Central Florida hike: whitewater, showcasing the Alafia River churning as it winds through a deeply eroded channel
With its natural waterfront on Tampa Bay, Apollo Beach Nature Preserve is a perfect place for birders, not beachgoers, a place to launch a kayak and scan the skies for osprey.
Weaving through scrubby habitats on an oasis of natural land surrounded by development, Bell Creek Nature Preserve provides a window to Florida’s vanishing landscapes.
E.G. Simmons Park in Ruskin offers a campground along with its beaches and mazy mangrove-lined waterways for paddlers and anglers along Tampa Bay.
Meandering over hilly terrain past numerous scenic overlooks, the Singing Bluffs Trail at Edward Medard Conservation Park provides great birding among documented nesting bird colonies.
Eureka Springs Park includes what remains of a tropical botanical garden established in 1938 around springs that fed a lush floodplain forest along Six Mile Creek
Hike rolling sandhills and rugged terrain sloping towards scenic views of the Alafia River and Little Fishhawk Creek near Lithia Springs.
An easy-going 2.8-mile loop trail explores the south tract of Fishhawk Creek Preserve providing a glimpse of a few natural and endangered Florida habitats.
