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.
West of Trenton along the Suwannee River, Otter Springs is a second magnitude spring surrounded by clusters of ancient oaks and towering cypress. It is a Gilchrist County Park.
Wes Skiles Peacock Springs State Park is a top international destination for cave divers thanks to its extensively mapped system of underwater tubes: more than six miles of passageways connecting two major springs, six sinkholes, and the Suwannee River.
In the quiet town of Ponce de Leon, the spring’s the thing. Chalky blue 68-degree water tempts swimmers in for a chilly dip in this first-magnitude spring, which gushes forth 14 million gallons of clean, clear water daily.
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.
Staring into Royal Springs, it feels like looking into a bottomless pit. Steep and broad, it drops 42 feet into shimmering waters of turquoise and royal blue.
With a boardwalk over a beautiful coastal scrub to a beach on the sparkling waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Salinas Park provides a picnic grove in a pine forest.
With a strong aquamarine hue accented by refracted rainbows as sunlight plays across the ripples on its sandy bottom, Silver Glen Springs is a first-magnitude spring in the Ocala National Forest.
It’s August. It’s Florida. Where do you go to cool off? The springs of the Suwannee River Valley. No matter the size, these natural swimming holes are a delight.
St. Andrews State Park is a pristine getaway on this coast that you won’t want to miss. It’s one of two bookends of natural wonder along the shoreline of Panama City Beach.
Protecting fragile coastal habitats on the tip of Cape San Blas as it curves around to shelter St. Joseph Bay, T.H. Stone Memorial St. Joseph Peninsula State Park provides a sweep of beachfront on both bay and Gulf to enjoy.
On the north tip of Jupiter Island, St. Lucie Inlet Preserve State Park is one of those rare parks that you can only reach by boat – motored, or under your own power, as most visitors do, by paddling through mangrove-lined coves.
Stump Pass Beach State Park sits at just the right angle to collect seashells like a scoop, so early risers have their pick of conchs, murex, tulip shells, shark’s teeth, and more.
