Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Parks and preserves in Florida with access for snorkelers and interesting sights to see when you’re snorkeling.
One of the Suwannee River’s largest swimming holes is the clear, cool reflecting pool of Fanning Springs, located along the edge of its namesake town.
Once the grand sentinel that protected the fledgling town of Key West from attack, Fort Zachary Taylor is still an imposing presence from the sea as sailboats – and monster cruise ships – pull into port in downtown Key West.
A string of five beaches along the Gulf shore of Boca Grande on Gasparilla Island, this far-flung outpost of Lee County is home to one of Florida’s most delightful lighthouse museums.
Cradling a collection of spectacular springs in a forested glen along the Santa Fe River, Gilchrist Blue Springs State Park is Florida’s newest state park and one of the finest places to experience a spring up close.
A swimming hole as a work of natural art, the deep gash in the earth that is Ichetucknee Spring glows an unearthly robin’s-egg blue, cradled in a limestone bowl within a leafy glen.
The original seat of Dade County, settled in 1836, lies in limestone ruins swaddled in a tropical forest within sight of US 1, but offshore. Indian Key takes a little planning to visit, but is well worth the journey.
One of Florida’s most popular beach destinations, Jetty Beach at St. Andrews State Park offers both wild and mellow surf on either side of the jetty.
Six miles offshore, the view is beneath the waves. It’s Molasses Reef, the most accessible living coral reef in the United States, a slice of the Caribbean in the Florida Keys. And it’s the main reason that John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park exists.
Wrapped in a dense blanket of mosquitoes, Lignumvitae Key Botanical State Park is one of the United States’ most significant botanical treasures, a virgin tropical forest home to more than a thousand lignum vitae trees.
Spanning shore to shore across much of its namesake island, Long Key State Park offers a bounty of botanical wonders across a variety of rare Florida Keys habitats.
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.
