Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Colorful springs, rocky shorelines, deep sinkholes, and tall bluffs are just part of the fascinating geologic wonders along Florida’s trails. Here’s where to find them.
Paved trails wind through the woods at A.D. Barnes Park, a Miami city park, where a tiny slice of native pine rocklands survives in one corner along with large trees.
Alderman’s Ford Nature Preserve offers a surprising treat for a Central Florida hike: whitewater, showcasing the Alafia River churning as it winds through a deeply eroded channel
The tropical hammock at Arch Creek Park was the site of a Tequesta Indian village between 500 B.C. and 1300 A.D. Gentle natural footpaths wind through the dark forest
Part of the Florida State Forests Trailwalker program, the Bear-N-Oak Trail at Indian Lake State Forest is a 1.6-mile loop that provides a fascinating look at habitat diversity centered on Indian Lake, a major karst feature in the Ocala Limestone
The Big Oak Trail is one of the most scenic hikes in North Florida. Much of the hiking parallels the Suwannee and Withlacoochee Rivers, which meet here at a confluence.
You hear them well before you can see them: a burble of water that rises to a roar as you approach the Big Shoals of the Suwannee River, Florida’s largest series of rapids complete with hydraulics and holes and Class III whitewater at certain times of year.
At Big Shoals State Park, the Big Shoals Trail leads you to scenic perches high atop the river bluffs when you can watch Florida’s only Class III whitewater rapids
At low tide, a walk along Bluffs Beach from the Bluffs Picnic Area of Big Talbot Island State Park brings rewarding views of the unusual black “rocks” and shimmering waters
At the Bill Sadowski Park and Nature Center, the Old Cutler Hammock Nature Trail offers a glimpse of what Cutler Ridge, south of Miami, looked like before development.
An unusual and picturesque geologic anomoly, Blackrock Beach at Big Talbot Island is covered with formations that look like black lava rocks but are made of sand
One of the most dramatic shorelines in Florida, the rocky shore of Blowing Rocks Preserve has sea caves and bluffs to explore on a hike through the oceanfront preserve
Lake Jackson Mounds is best known for being one of the largest ceremonial temple mound complexes in the Southeast, but it offers a cool, shady nature trail, too
