Hiking the Florida Trail is unlike hiking any of the other National Scenic Trails in the United States, starting with the terrain.
Yes, it’s “flat” here compared to other states, but you’ll be surprised at the botanical diversity and the hills and ridges will be more obvious when you reach them.
Our hiking season is October to April, with optimal long-distance backpacking best in January, February, and March.
Hiking south to north is the usual progression of a thru-hiker in order to move in step with the change of season and with the expiration of general gun season (deer hunting season) on public lands.
Starting at the southern terminus means, however, that most Florida Trail thru-hikers start off with the toughest piece of the trail first: the Big Cypress Swamp.
The good news? Once you get through it, nothing else is quiet as tough. Different, but not the challenge that Big Cypress smacks you with right off the bat.
Most hikers take 60 to 90 days to complete the trail. You have several options as you hike, and you can “choose one” to still count as a thru-hike.
Go east or west around Lake Okeechobee, east or west around Central Florida, and west to the terminus at Fort Pickens or north to the Alabama border to connect to the Eastern Continental Trail.
The official southern terminus of the Florida Trail is at Oasis Visitor Center in Big Cypress National Preserve. The official northern terminus is at Fort Pickens in Gulf Islands National Seashore.
Some thru-hikers complete the Florida Trail as a portion of a much longer hike, the Eastern Continental Trail.
Popularized by Sunny “Nimblewill Nomad” Eberhardt, this continent-spanning route runs from Key West, Florida to Cap Gaspe, Quebec. If you’re considering such a quest, check out our details about the ECT here.
Here’s a walk through of what you’ll see along the Florida Trail, south to north. Sandra completed the FT end-to-end in 2019.
The Trail Community
Who’s hiking the Florida Trail? If you’ve hiked on the AT, PCT, or CDT, you’ll see more familiar faces than you’d expect. America’s long distance hikers are well represented on the Florida Trail.
Since 2014, the nonprofit FTthruHIKE (Florida Trail Hikers Alliance) has been growing a trail community in Florida. To do so, it hosts an annual Florida Trail Kickoff to gather thru-hikers together to meet each other.
The event also facilitate rides to the otherwise remote Southern Terminus, which sits halfway between Miami and Naples in the middle of Florida’s biggest swamp.
FTthruHIKE connects people together – hikers helping hikers – across the state of Florida. Remember, the Florida Trail is half the length of the Appalachian Trail and crosses two time zones.
In addition to a very active Facebook group called Florida Trail Hikers, each year FTthruHIKE manages a private group of current year thru and section hikers.
That way hikers can interact with volunteers statewide who help hikers out by placing water caches, helping with shuttles, and jumping in when an emergency happens.
A side effect of the growth of this “trail angel” community – folks who generally prefer to stay anonymous except to the hikers they’re helping out – is that certain churches along the trail have taken on hiker support as a part of their mission and outreach.
With church involvement, local residents are becoming more aware of the trail that runs through their community.
While the Florida Trail will never be the Appalachian Trail in terms of volume of thru-hikers – nor could it support it – we are heartened to see the Florida Trail hiker community begin to blossom.
Hiking Florida: The Real Deal
If you’re planning a Florida Trail thru-hike, there are important facts about Florida you need to know.
1) Florida’s weather is unpredictable in winter. It can be 83 degrees today and 43 degrees tomorrow. You need to pack prepared for a full range of weather.
It’s unlikely it will snow during your hike, but it has. You can experience freezing temperatures, especially in the Panhandle, but also in Big Cypress.
Don’t leave that puffy jacket behind because this is Florida! Bring a sleeping bag that can handle 20F or below. Learn more about hiking in Florida.
2) Florida is wet. All the time. Even when we have droughts that dry up water sources, humidity is still heavy in the air. Quick-drying clothing is a must. Expect damp cold when it is cold.
It is necessary, most days, to pack up a wet tent in the morning and stake it out to dry when you have a chance to take a break in the sunshine.
You will want hiking shoes or boots that ARE NOT waterproof. Otherwise water will get trapped in your boots and make a mess of your feet.
3) Florida is sandy. The underlying ground in Florida is, for the most part, made of sand. Most of the state was beneath the sea at one point or another.
Sand gets in your shoes and roughs up your soles. Make sure you use socks that can handle heavy abrasion.
Low-cut gaiters are a good investment to keep sand out of your shoes. We like Dirty Girl gaiters.
4) Florida has bugs. A lot of them. Mosquitoes, ticks, and chiggers can be a problem year-round, although we like winter for hiking since we might have a freeze that knocks them out for a while.
Invest in a good insect repellent and carry it with you. Consider treating your clothing with permetherin in advance of your hike for added protection.
Depending on where you are in Florida, mosquitoes can carry some real nasty tropical diseases, including Zika. Ticks can infect you with Lyme disease and alpha gal syndrome.
5) Florida is sunny. Expect a lot of exposure to the sun while hiking the Florida Trail. There are long stretches with no shade, particularly between the north end of the Big Cypress Swamp and Orlando.
In South Florida, the trail follows water management dikes; in Central Florida, you walk through a lot of open prairies with only the occasional oak hammock for shade.
Wear a hat, bring sunglasses, and use sunscreen. Long sleeves and long pants help sun protection. Shorts may seem great for hiking, but you’ll tear your legs up on briars in sections that aren’t heavily maintained.
6) Florida has roadwalks. There are less than 250 miles of roadwalks along the entire Florida Trail. You’ll do more than 175 miles of roadwalks on the average thru-hike.
Many of the roadwalks are on quiet back roads. A few of them are along dangerous state and U.S. highways. This is the absolute worst of them, the stretch of two-lane high-speed highway along SR 60 north of River Ranch in the Kissimmee section.
Roadwalks – and the occasional use of paved bike paths in urban areas – can be very tough on your feet, especially combined with the dampness and the sand that you’ll find everywhere.
7) Some permits are required. You MUST arrange certain permits in advance. These are not optional.
There are three stretches of trail where a permit is absolutely, positively, required. You can and will be escorted off the trail if you are caught without one:
Crossing the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation (private tribal land), camping on St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge (federal land), and crossing/camping Eglin Air Force Base (military base).
There are other permits that can be arranged as you hike along. See our Plan Your Hike section.
8) Join the Florida Trail Association. Membership isn’t optional for thru-hikers. The Florida Trail crosses some private land where the corridor is negotiated between the Florida Trail Association and the landowner. Besides, you should support the massive volunteer effort it takes to keep this trail maintained. Join here.
9) Carry maps. Unlike the Appalachian Trail, you can’t just follow the blazes – which, by the way, are orange along the length of the Florida Trail.
You can buy an excellent set of maps from the Florida Trail Association.
10) Plan logistics in advance. We have a comprehensive guidebook, The Florida Trail Guide, which can help you with that.
It’s patterned after The AT Guide in format, replacing elevation profiles (irrelevant here) with rough maps.
It includes lots of town maps, suggested zero day stops, all resupply stops, information how to get to and from the termini, where to buy fuel, and more.
We also have an interactive version of the guidebook from FarOut which provides a GPS-enabled view of the trail and offline maps.
We spend 15 pages in our guidebook covering other essentials beyond the questions above like “how and where to filter water” and “how to get to and from the termini.”
Yes, you will see alligators and snakes (see our Hiking in Florida info for how to cope). Yes, there are parts of the trail that are excessively dry, just as there are parts that are quite wet.
Learn more about the sections of the Florida Trail. Each page within these regions includes a mileage chart and overview map, our tips on topics from resupply to roadwalks, and details on many linear hikes.
Thru-hiker Resources
Since 2003, we’ve researched and published guidebooks to the Florida Trail. Now in its fifth edition, The Florida Trail Guide, is a comprehensive collection of everything you need to know about the trail, with detailed data sheets and narrative descriptions. We kicked off this format in 2013, modeled after The AT Guide with design help from David “AWOL” Miller.
Look for updates to each edition of our guidebook, cumulatively, on our website under Florida Trail Updates.
In partnership with FarOut, we provide the details behind the Florida National Scenic Trail within their trails app. Their map-based app works offline and in airplane mode when you’re out on the trail. Most helpful are real-time comments on the waypoints from other hikers on important topics like water sources.
We recommend carrying paper maps from the Florida Trail Association as a backup. Obtain them as part of the Thru-Hiker Packet from the Florida Trail Association. In addition to their detailed water-resistant maps it includes their data book and a trail passport to have stamped along your hike.
Let FTthruHIKE know you’re planning a thru-hike or working on a section hike of the Florida Trail by joining their Florida Trail Hikers group on Facebook.
Answer the questions to be approved, then request to be added to the private page for this season’s class of FT Hikers so you can interact with FTthruHIKE volunteers. They place and track water caches along the trail during hiking season and pop up as trail angels for hikers in need.
After Your Hike
After your hike, you are welcome to apply for a Thousand Miler Award from FTthruHIKE to commemorate your achievement of completing more than 1,000 linear miles of the Florida Trail, joining a select list of those who’ve completed the trail. It’s still less than 500 people in the past 50 years!
When you complete your hike, also download the End-to-End Application, fill it out, and send it in to the Florida Trail Association. They will issue a certificate and patch for your accomplishment.