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 lower Suwannee River, Manatee Springs State Park centers around a clear blue spring, one of Florida’s largest and most picturesque
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 is Florida’s Big Sky country, blanketing more than 28,000 acres east of Sarasota
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.
Gentle loop trails showcase wild spaces and cultivated grounds at Princess Place Preserve, an 1880s homestead on Pellicer Creek with a campground on site.
Within city limits yet truly wild, Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park protects more than 4,000 acres 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
