Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Florida’s largest city, Jacksonville will surprise you with its trails on public lands ranging from vast estuaries and beaches to narrow green corridors
INTERACTIVE MAP
As the Florida Trail sweeps in a broad arc through North Florida, hikers are introduced to ancient trees, unusual karst formations, and rolling sandhills.
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.
At the site of the original French settlement in Florida, explore the rich natural and cultural history of the region at the Timucuan Preserve visitor center, Fort Caroline, and its interpretive nature trail.
With layer upon layer of human habitation atop the highest hill on the Southeastern Atlantic coast, Fort George Island still shows signs of the human touch: the coastal scrub forest is filling in former golf greens.
At Little Talbot Island State Park, the Island Hiking Trail is a 3.5-mile loop that guides you on a scramble over big dunes to a beach walk on the Atlantic Ocean
Following a historic railroad route that was the spark for the Battle of Olustee during the Civil War, the Jacksonville-Baldwin Rail Trail is an excellent bike trail that spans 14.5 miles from Jacksonville to Baldwin.
The 1.5-mile Jones Cut Trail provides a meander into the heart of the maritime forest that carpets Big Talbot Island State Park, but it’s not the easiest trail to find
With cool ocean breezes and a plunge in the surf after your hike, the 2.7-mile trail at Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park in Jacksonville is a great choice for a summer outing
One of the historic treasures of Timucuan Preserve in Jacksonville, Kingsley Plantation interprets the everyday lives of free and enslaved peoples on an early 1800s Florida plantation.
With one of the closest wild beaches to Jacksonville, Little Talbot Island State Park is a heavily visited park, and not just for its beaches. Paddling in the estuaries and camping amid the dunes are popular pastimes, too.
In a densely wooded corner of the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, the Robert W. Loftin Nature Trails are a prime place for trail runners and hikers to play.
Along US 90, Maclenny is a quiet Florida town, the county seat of Baker County, with a small historic district, a genealogical library, and a historic courthouse
