Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
The historic seaside community of Flagler Beach is the anchor of an array of natural lands that offer recreation opportunities by the sea and along inland waterways.
Flagler Beach
With a 1.8-mile loop through the uplands of Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, the Bella Vista Trail offers a close look at the variety of habitats found on this barrier island
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 connector between Bulow Creek State Park and Bulow Plantation Ruins, the Bulow Woods Trail parallels the flow of this freshwater creek near the sea.
On the shores of Fort Matanzas, a significant historic site south of St. Augustine, the dunes are now swaddled in maritime forest, a gentle place with ancient oaks and an accessible boardwalk.
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.
Nestled in oak hammocks along Pellicer Creek, Faver-Dykes State Park has an easy nature trail, the Pine Loop Trail, for landlubbers to trace the route of the creek through old-growth pines.
