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.
Easy weekend backpacking trips that you can tackle in various parts of Florida. Most of them are portions of the statewide Florida Trail.
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.
With three stacked loops containing 24.9 miles of marked footpaths, the Croom Hiking Trail is one of the oldest and driest loop hike destinations for backpackers on the Florida Trail.
A prime destination for backpacking and day hiking near Ocala, the Florida Trail, Cross Florida Greenway stretches 30 miles between Dunnellon and Silver Springs.
16.6 miles. On the Jackson Red Ground Trail, the very first trail built in Blackwater River State Forest in the 1970s, the Florida Trail rises up from the red clay bluffs of Juniper Creek and enters rolling clayhills topped with longleaf pine forests.
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
One of the most beautiful hikes near Orlando is rugged, too: the Florida Trail atop bluffs above the Econlockhatchee River through Little-Big Econ State Forest.
72.2 miles. Of all of the sections of the Florida Trail statewide, the Ocala National Forest is both the oldest section of the trail and the most compelling for backpackers.
