Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Places to paddle along rivers in Florida, from major ones like the St. Johns to smaller ones like the Aucilla. Riverfront hikes are listed here.
A long-time Old Florida swimming hole along SR 6 between the towns of Lee and Jasper, Madison Blue Spring is a sinkhole pouring out a first-magnitude spring into the Withlacoochee River.
Showcasing the topography of the lower Suwannee River, Manatee Springs State Park has trails leading around deep sinkholes, walks through ancient forests, and a spring run so clear you can see schools of fish racing down it to the river.
With hiking in scrubby flatwoods and sandhills above forested slopes draining to Murphy Creek, as well as on Murphy Island in the St. Johns River, this water management preserve provides two places to explore.
With tall waving grasses, saw palmetto, and the sound of birds, Myakka River State Park immerses you in Florida’s Big Sky country amid wide open prairies and riverside marshes.
Once a pioneer community along the Old Bellamy Road connecting St. Augustine and Tallahassee in 1826, O’Leno State Park protects one of North Florida’s weirder geologic wonders, a disappearing river.
At Ochlockonee River State Park waters meet, the tidal bore of the estuary pushing upstream to meet two rivers draining the vast swamps of the Apalachicola National Forest.
Camping cabins and mountain biking in Miami? Oleta River State Park is a surprising gem amid the bustle of this dense urban area, providing both beach access and paddlers a place to explore the mangrove islands of the Oleta River and Biscayne Bay.
What to do on a hot summer’s day? Try the naturally air-conditioned Silver River for a paddling trip.
One of Florida’s most beautiful paddling trips, the Weeki Wachee River rises from first magnitude Weeki Wachee Springs and winds through lush floodplain forests as it is fed by hundreds of smaller springs along this 5.5-mile paddling run.
Four gentle hiking loops showcase wild spaces and cultivated grounds at Princess Place Preserve, an 1880s homestead on Pellicer Creek with a historic lodge and campground on site.
Within city limits yet truly wild, Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park protects more than 4,000 acres as it rambles along the edges of enormous estuaries draining into the St. Johns River.
A place of beauty that morphed from phosphate pits to botanical attraction over the course of a century, Rainbow Springs State Park cradles one of Florida’s most beautiful first-magnitude springs and the river it creates in a wrap of shady forests and gardens.
