Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Tampa Bay is one of Florida’s largest landforms, a large shallow bay with many urban communities along its shores, most notably Tampa and St. Petersburg.
With its natural waterfront on Tampa Bay, Apollo Beach Nature Preserve is a perfect place for birders, not beachgoers, a place to launch a kayak and scan the skies for osprey.
Explore coastal habitats on the Arrowhead Nature Trail at Fort De Soto Park, an interpretive walk where you’ll learn about salt-dependent plants along Mullet Key Bayou.
The 0.4 mile Barrier Free Trail at Fort De Soto Park has a graded path wide enough for two wheelchairs to pass and six touch-activated interpretive speakers along the path.
Once a zoo in St. Petersburg, Boyd Hill Park has 3 miles of trails looping through a mosaic of natural habitats and tropical landscapes along Lake Maggiore.
Sitting between St. Petersburg and Sarasota, Bradenton is a coastal community on the Manatee River, home to a rich archaeological heritage and a national park, De Soto National Memorial
Along an environmentally significant estuary of Boca Ciega Bay, Clam Bayou Nature Preserve offers well-established trails with several overlooks and a kayak launch
Directly across Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg, two loop trails in Cockroach Bay Nature Preserve navigate restored wetlands and a lookout point known as Mount Cockroach.
Commemorating the landing of Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto, De Soto National Memorial is a significant archaeological site where the Manatee River flows into Tampa Bay.
E.G. Simmons Park in Ruskin offers a campground along with its beaches and mazy mangrove-lined waterways for paddlers and anglers along Tampa Bay.
In Tampa Bay, Egmont Key, an island that was once a Civil War refugee camp, is now a bird rookery and historic site, with trails accessible only by boat.
Where the Manatee River meets the Gulf of Mexico near Bradenton, Emerson Point Preserve protects the Portavent Mound, one of Florida’s most ancient temple mounds
In Florida, water is an ever-present part of our lives. A visit to the Rainbow River yesterday brought back memories of the past and concerns for the future of Florida’s waters.
