Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Along Scenic A1A on one of the prettiest stretches of oceanfront on the Atlantic Coast, the seaside community of Flagler Beach anchors an array of natural lands
Betty Steflik Memorial Preserve protects more than 200 acres of mangrove marsh, mud flats, and coastal uplands right on the edge of downtown Flagler Beach
Walk among the ancients in Bulow Hammock, starting with the imposing Fairchild Oak, one of Florida’s largest live oak trees
History and natural beauty meet under a dense oak canopy at the ruins of one of Florida’s oldest sugar mills
Stretching 5.2 miles through an primordial forest of sluggish, fern-lined waterways, ancient live oaks, magnolias, and cabbage palms, the Bulow Woods Loop is one of North Florida’s most scenic hikes
A linear hike between state park day use areas at Bulow Plantation Ruins and Bulow Creek, the Bulow Woods Trail parallels the flow of a freshwater creek near the sea
Formerly Flagler Beach State Park, Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area stretches from the orange sand beaches of the Atlantic Ocean to the windswept oak hammocks along the Intracoastal Waterway.
Protecting more than 3,000 acres – 2,700 acres of which are covered in swamps – Graham Swamp Preserve offers hikers a glimpse of the dense floodplain where Bulow Creek rises.
Here’s a gentle walk that’s great for birding – a boardwalk at Wadsworth Park, just west of the Intracoastal bridge on the north side of SR 100 west of Flagler Beach.
Neatly accessed via “The Loop,” a scenic drive that extends north from Ormond Beach, North Peninsula State Park has two tantalizing miles of oceanfront along a palm-rimmed line of dunes.
Imagine passing by a preserve dozens of times over the years and never seeing it. That’s what I’d done here in Flagler Beach, until I finally discovered Betty Steflik Memorial Preserve thanks to a heads-up from a local innkeeper.
In 2007, a group of senior hikers made Florida hiking history by successfully completing a backpacking trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico via backroads, the Florida Trail, and the Withlacoochee Bay Trail. All were over age 80.
Along a cove on a tidal creek that flows out to the Intracoastal Waterway, Wadsworth Park near Flagler Beach provides a gentle introduction to the marshes.
