Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Gateway to the vast Green Swamp, Dade City offers easy access to day hikes and backpacking trips.
Dade City
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
In Central Florida, the Florida Trail presents two options: east or west around the Orlando metro. Forested public lands provide protection for much of the route.
At Cypress Lakes Preserve, a 1.7-mile segment of the Florida Trail follows the edge of a series of cypress-lined lakes where ancient trees have survived the ages
241 miles. With segments linking Withlacoochee State Forest and the Cross Florida Greenway, the Western Corridor provides access to wild spaces north of Tampa.
Part of Hillsborough River State Park, Fort Foster State Historic Site takes you back to the era of Florida’s earliest pioneer settlers and their clashes with the native Seminoles.
A dip into a corner of the Green Swamp, Gator Creek Preserve north of Lakeland offers 2.5 miles of easy loop trails for the whole family to explore
One of Tampa’s oldest parks, Hillsborough River State Park has a 5.8-mile trail system as its centerpiece, through old-growth forest and along river rapids.
Water in motion: the Hillsborough rapids foam and froth over limestone boulders beneath grand cypress trees in Class II rapids. One of Florida’s oldest state parks, Hillsborough River State Park showcases this masterpiece of nature from an overlook and trail system built by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
A mosaic of cypress floodplains, pine flatwoods, and sandhills, the Oak Ridge Equestrian Area is a thousand-acre woodland with 18 miles of trails burrowing deep into the forest.
At the 2014 Pasco County Bug Jam, we spent hours walking up and down the rows of vintage VWs. This year’s event was bigger and better than before, with lots of dune buggies on display.
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.
A linear trail, the Upper Hillsborough River Hiking Trail meanders through pine flatwoods, oak hammocks, and floodplain forests along the edge of the Hillsborough River basin.
