Your guide to Florida's outdoors, by Sandra Friend, Florida's hiking expert, and her co-author John Keatley, covering the Florida Trail and other trails throughout Florida.
The Big Oak Trail is one of the most scenic hikes in North Florida. Much of the hiking parallels the Suwannee and Withlacoochee Rivers, which meet here at a confluence.
One of Florida’s longest backpacking loops – and the longest within a single piece of public land – the Citrus Hiking Trail offers up to 43 miles of rugged and interesting terrain near Inverness
An immersion into vast pine flatwoods that includes scrambles over ancient dunes, the East Loop at Jonathan Dickinson State Park provides both day hikers and backpackers a delightful getaway.
Providing a 20.5 mile loop for backpacking amid open pine savannas and prairies, the Florida Trail at Bull Creek WMA is a popular destination.
A prime destination for backpacking and day hiking near Ocala, the Florida Trail, Cross Florida Greenway stretches 30 miles between Dunnellon and Silver Springs.
Surprisingly rugged and delightfully diverse, this 17.7 mile hike along Econfina Creek is one of the top segments of the Florida Trail for scenic beauty. Scrambling through ravines, stepping carefully along sidehill, and looking down over sheer bluffs along this spring-fed creek, you’ll marvel that this hike is in Florida.
This 45 mile segment of the Florida Trail through Eglin Air Force Base traverses ravines and old growth forests, an excellent destination for backpacking in Florida’s Panhandle.
Bordered by the tangled floodplain forests of the Yellow River to the north, this 14.3-mile segment of the Florida Trail traverses high, dry sandhills topped with longleaf pine forest and planted pine.
For 10.5 miles through Juniper Prairie Wilderness in the Ocala National Forest, the Florida Trail traverses a mosaic of fire-dependent ancient scrub, pine islands, and open prairies
Winding along and around a mosaic of both dry and wet prairies that make up the Farles Prairie complex, this 8.5 mile segment of the Florida Trail provides a deep immersion into the Big Scrub
