Accessible Trails

A tiny slice of native pine rocklands survives in a corner of this Miami city park, where paved nature trails provide access for all into a glimpse of what landscaped yards would look like if left to nature’s way. Resources Overview Location: Miami Length: 0.6 miles Lat-Long: 25.738433, -80.308917 Type: paved interconnecting trails Fees / [...]

A breezy walk along the St. Johns River is an easy way to start your day in Jacksonville at the Arlington Lions Club Park. With a 3/4-mile unpaved trail, 1/4-mile accessible trail, and connecting boardwalks along the river, all with plenty of park benches for resting, this trail system is a comfortable excursion for visitors [...]

Nestled in an unexpected corner of Flagler Beach, Betty Steflik Memorial Preserve protects more than 200 acres of mangrove marsh, mud flats, and coastal uplands right on the edge of this downtown beach community. Established in 1995, an extensive network of boardwalks carries you along estuarine creeks and out to the Intracoastal Waterway, offering panoramic [...]

A ribbon of asphalt that connects communities and parks within the historic Apalachicola River town of Blountstown, the Blountstown Greenway is ideal for walking or biking and, in part, serves as a path for the Florida Trail through the center of town. Heavily shaded by deep upland forest for much of the journey, it connects [...]

Boyd Hill Park originally began its life as a zoo and botanical garden for the city of St. Petersburg. It has since evolved over the decades into a mosaic of natural habitats and wild tropical landscapes along the shores of Lake Maggiore. From the outer Main Trail, there are five side trails (mostly loops) showcasing [...]

Adjoining the historic Orman House in downtown Apalachicola, Chapman Botanical Garden honors the memory of Dr. Alvan Wentworth Chapman, a noted botanist who lived and worked as a medical doctor in Apalachicola. In 1860, Chapman published Flora of the Southern United States, one of the first such studies of southern plant life. Both Chapman oaks [...]

At the Constitution Convention Museum State Park, interpretive exhibits and artifacts put a face on Florida’s frontier days, with a special focus on the historic city of St. Joseph (now Port St. Joe). Established by homesteaders who were kicked out of Apalachicola thanks to a sneaky land deal called the Forbes Purchase (1830), St. Joe [...]

You’ll find Florida’s best and most extensive boardwalk hike at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, meandering 2.3 miles through an old-growth cypress forest. Managed by the National Audubon Society since 1912, Corkscrew Swamp, encompassing 315 square miles, is one of the most important breeding grounds for wood storks and one of the few places you can see [...]

Connecting Wildlife Drive and the Indigo Trail, the Cross Dike Trail at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge is an easy paved walk along a dike between two impoundments. An observation deck provides a spot for birding along the mangrove-lined waters. Resources Overview Location: Sanibel Island Length: 0.3 mile Lat-Long: 26.461382,-82.1332 Type: round-trip Fees: National Wildlife [...]

The shortest walk in Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge is one you shouldn’t miss on your drive along Wildlife Drive. Pull off a mile into the refuge to head down to the Red Mangrove Overlook, where the boardwalk tunnels though the roots of the mangroves to emerge at a sweeping view of a shallow salt [...]

Trail update: Disney Wilderness is no longer open on weekends. Managed by The Nature Conservancy, the Disney Wilderness Preserve is a 12,000 acre showcase for habitat restoration and conservation in a region where development continues – with major loss of habitat – at a startling pace. Purchased to replace habitats erased by the construction of [...]

Although Erna Nixon Park is just down the street from one of the busiest shopping malls on the Space Coast – Melbourne Square – it transports you right out of suburbia and back into the wilds of Florida’s past. Primarily a boardwalk, the interpretive trail that is the main feature of this Brevard County Park [...]

The Bobcat Boardwalk at Shark Valley is a popular destination in winter and spring to see migratory and nesting birds. Most visitors opt to bike or take the tram around the 14-mile paved loop through the River of Grass, which provides a stop at a tall observation tower along the route. For folks who walk [...]

This paved walk offers excellent views of Florida Bay and insight into the evolution of the Everglades National Park. In the early 1900s, naturalists were well aware of the vast bird life in the Everglades, and so were plume hunters, looking to cash in on the use of heron plumage as a New York fashion [...]

Pa-Hay-Okee is the Seminole word for “River of Grass,” the name Marjorie Stoneman Douglas bestowed on the Everglades while advocating to have the region protected as a National Park. This trail is a short boardwalk with a tall observation tower. Both provide a close-up look at the river of grass. Resources Overview Location: Everglades National [...]

At West Lake, the Mangrove Trail loops through a forest that has seen its share of hurricane-related damage, from salty mud flats deposited by Hurricane Donna to the storm surges of 2005 from Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. Yet this walk still leads you through a shady tunnel, showcasing the protector of Florida’s coastline, the mighty [...]

If you’re driving along I-10 from Jacksonville to Lake City and want to take a break by taking a hike, this interpretive trail in the Osceola National Forest provides an interesting spot to stretch your legs – the trailhead is at the Sanderson Rest Area westbound. This walk boasts colorful and detailed signage to orient [...]

Along this woodland in Ocala, enjoy a swath of true urban wilderness, a mile-wide corridor edged on both sides by subdivisions and strip malls. Both remain gratefully out of sight and sound as you walk along the Florida Trail in the Baseline section of the Cross Florida Greenway. Now I’m not a fan of paved [...]

In the Osceola National Forest, this short loop adjacent to Olustee Battlefield is one of the easiest places in the state to see red-cockaded woodpeckers. It’s part of the statewide Florida Trail, and provides a prime spot to watch these endangered birds around their nest holes in ancient longleaf pines. It also has is a [...]

Dangling like an anchor into the southern waters of Tampa Bay, Mullet Key is known to the world as Fort De Soto Park, home of a rare find: unspoiled, uninhabited Suncoast beaches. During the Spanish-American War, the pressure was on to protect Tampa, since troops shipped out of the port for Cuba, and thus Fort [...]

A forest of mangroves along the Caloosahatchee River, Four Mile Cove Eco Preserve is a rare find in Cape Coral, where most of the landscape has been developed (to the detriment of those little burrowing owls) over the past fifty years. Tucked right up against the Midpoint Memorial Bridge, this park provides a gateway for [...]

Protecting a sheet flow of rainfall moving steadily southward and parallel to the Atlantic Ocean, Grassy Waters Preserve bears a striking resemblance to the Florida Everglades. It’s hard to imagine now, with the crush of humanity along this coast, but this shimmering sheet of sawgrass once was part of the River of Grass, feeding directly [...]

Hidden deep in a leafy glade, a shimmering pool rises from the earth to pour through palm hammocks towards the St. Johns River. At Green Springs Park, the trails are short but well-groomed, with options for all abilities – a paved biking trail loops through the park along with a network of natural footpaths. Families [...]

With its extensive waterfront on Lake Tarpon and Brooker Creek in Oldsmar, John Chesnut Sr. Park has always been a popular natural getaway for folks near Tampa and Clearwater Beach. Pop in any weekend and you’ll see the picnic pavilions busy and people headed out on the water from the boat ramp. In this 255-acre [...]

Experience crystalline waters emerging from the midst of the world’s largest scrub forest—hike an easy nature trail and boardwalk in the Ocala National Forest. Surrounded by the dryness of the Big Scrub, the world’s largest scrub forest, Juniper Springs is a playground of hydrological wonders, the center of a jungle-like oasis of riotous growth. At [...]

Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park is truly a botanical treasure, with the highest concentration of champion trees in one place in the United States—and none are over 45 feet tall. Current and prior national champions include crabwood (Ateramnus lucidus), Bahama strongback (Bourreria ovata), spicewood (Calyptranthes pallens), wild cinnamon (Canella winterana), milk-bark (Drypetes diversifolia), Guiana [...]

In the most improbable of places, surrounded by highways, apartments, and shopping centers where Altamonte Springs and Maitland meet, Lake Lotus Park was my secret getaway when I lived far too close to I-4 and discovered this woodland retreat within a couple of miles of home. The 1.7-mile trail system provides a great respite from [...]

With a grand stand of healthy pine flatwoods providing a gateway to 53 acres of protected land hemmed in by residential and commercial development in Jupiter, Limestone Creek Natural Area is a green gem in the eastern corridor of the Northeast Everglades Natural Area. A paved wheelchair accessible trail winds through the woods to an [...]

The site of an open-pit phosphate mine until the early 1980s, this reclamation project borders the Peace River floodplain, where the boardwalk winds through the floodplain forest out to the river. Interpretive signs give background information on the 1,800-square-mile Peace River basin. Resources Overview Location: Fort Meade Length: 0.5-mile Lat-Long: 27.821817, -81.804433 Type: round-trip Fees [...]

Circling one of Oscar Scherer State Park’s notable water features, Lake Osprey, the wheelchair-accessible Lake Osprey Trail – the park’s newest trail, opened in 2010 – offers a natural surface exploration of the uplands surrounding the artesian-spring-fed waters. Birding is excellent, especially in the early morning hours. The many benches along this path make it [...]

There are a handful of places that stand out as excellent locations for wildlife watching in Florida – Circle B Bar, the Anhinga Trail, Shark Valley, Green Cay Wetlands, Orlando Wetlands Park – but the place to see alligators is in the home of the Gators, Gainesville. Paynes Prairie is a massive landform in North [...]

Protecting the tip of a peninsula where Little Alligator Creek meets Charlotte Harbor, Ponce De Leon Park is a city park where residents of Punta Gorda can enjoy dramatic sunsets over the harbor from a sweeping stretch of beach created to showcase the waterfront. Most of the park is an untrammeled mangrove forest, which you [...]

Why build a boardwalk in the middle of one of the most impassible swamps in Florida? Along the Gulf Coast near Carrabelle, Tate’s Hell is well-known for being a wild place. Its name is derived from the legend of a lost farmer who vanished for a week in the wilderness only to find his way [...]

A 487-acre mosaic of mud flats, mangrove swamps, and beaches, Robinson Preserve is a testament to the spirit of Aldo Leopold. Formerly farmland in a district of Bradenton known for its tropical plant nurseries, this expanse of waterfront habitats has undergone extensive restoration, from removal of invasive species to re-creating tidal creeks and basins nourished [...]

Where I-95 and I-595 meet, you’d hardly believe there’s a place for green space. Port Everglades looms to the east, and jets take off and land at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport. But Secret Woods is very special. It’s hidden under such a dense canopy of mangroves that most people buzzing past have no idea [...]

As the wind whips across a broad, sweeping peninsula reaching out towards Ponce Inlet, you can hear the squawks of shorebirds and the rustle of gopher tortoises intermingle with engines gunning and dogs barking. At New Smyrna Beach, Smyrna Dunes Park is one of those rare places where most recreational users are accommodated. The 2-mile [...]

Along US 90 in Marianna, a highway pulloff provides a quiet place to duck into the woods and sit a spell along the shores of a crystalline waterway—Spring Creek. The creek begins at Blue Spring, a swimming area to the north, and flows into a reservoir on the opposite side of US 90. Here, at [...]

A sweep of fragile dunes along a shore that’s vanished, over time, under the rush of development: Topsail Hill State Park is a very special place. Protecting more than 3 miles of oceanfront on the Gulf of Mexico – and the 1,600 acres of delicate scrub and pine flatwoods habitats that lie behind the dune [...]

Surrounded by suburbia in Palm Bay, Turkey Creek Sanctuary is a precious preserve of 117 acres, protecting the gentle bends of Turkey Creek as it carves a deep path through sandy banks on its winding course to the Indian River Lagoon. With boardwalks carrying you over a variety of habitats, including sand pine scrub, river [...]

Wading birds everywhere: that’s the delight of a walk along the boardwalks of Wakodahatchee Wetlands. The first wetlands park in the region, it continues to draw a regular crowd for morning stolls, photography, and serious birdwatching. Resources Overview Location: Delray Beach Length: 0.75 mile boardwalk Lat-Long: 26.477817, -80.144900 Type: linear/loop Fees / Permits: none Difficulty: [...]