Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Discover the outdoors hidden in plain sight across the parks and natural lands of Greater Fort Lauderdale, stretching from the edge of the Everglades to the Atlantic Ocean
From its roots in a citrus grove, a nonprofit botanical garden sprouted through the efforts of Floyd and Lula Wray. In 1927, they purchased 320 acres to grow citrus and a year later, Floyd hired Frank Stirling to create a botanical garden for test planting of tropical fruit and flowering trees.
8.0 miles. An easy ramble from the I-75 rest area north along Nobles Grade, this wildlife-rich segment of the Florida Trail offers several loop options for day hikers and backpackers.
56.2 miles. Stretching from the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation to Lake Okeechobee, the Florida Trail Seminole section traverses a vast agricultural region, the former Everglades. Hiking is on roads and levees.
Heading north through Big Cypress, the Florida Trail immerses hikers through one of the last wild spaces of the region, then connects to Okeechobee via dikes.
When you live in a tightly packed space, you need somewhere green as your go-to place nearby. These are our top picks for parks in Florida’s urban areas, chosen for their diversity of outdoor activities and/or their unique green spaces.
In just 13 acres, Helene Klein Pineland Preserve packs in a nice walk through a variety of habitats within an urban forest along busy Hillsboro Blvd
A 44 acre remnant of forest that once spanned between the Atlantic Coastal Ridge and the Everglades, Hillsboro Pineland Natural Area offers gentle nature trails less than a mile long
In a tropical forest across the street from Fort Lauderdale Beach, Hugh Taylor Birch State Park is the former estate of Chicago attorney Hugh Taylor Birch, stretching to the Intracoastal Waterway
At the highest natural elevation in Broward County, this pine-topped ridge speaks to the history of those who lived here in the past, in a village that Mikasuki medicine chief Abiaka called home
Pondhawk Natural Area protects 79 acres of scrub habitats and wetlands, including a relict pond apple slough with some of the tallest pond apple trees in Florida.
For a relaxing cruise along Fort Lauderdale Beach and a chance to snorkel offshore, take a trip on the Spirit of Lauderdale to gawk at Millionaire’s Row and sail on the Atlantic
Designated the first “urban wilderness area” in Florida in 1978, Secret Woods protects a 56-acre floodplain of cypress strand and mangroves with uplands of tropical hammock
