Home of Walt Disney World, Sea World, Universal Studios, and other theme parks that attract many, many millions of visitors each year, the Orlando metro area is also a great place to take a hike. With riverside strolls, dense forests, open prairies, and wetlands, it’s a diverse region to explore. The following hikes are within an easy drive of Orlando. Some can be reached via public transportation.
Bear Creek Nature Trail
A tiny patch of wild in a sea of suburbia, Bear Creek provides a short walk in a shady creekside hammock, a delightful but brief escape from the backyard blues. Resources Overview Location: Winter Springs Length: 0.3 mile Lat-Long: 28.677795, -81.245833 Type: loop Fees / Permits: none Difficulty: easy to moderate Bug factor: moderate… [Continue Reading]
Big Tree Park
As old Florida postcards can attest, Big Tree Park has been a major tourist attraction for decades. It’s “The Senator,” of course, that keeps them coming. Named for Senator M.O. Overstreet, who donated this massive cypress and the land around it to the people of Seminole County, the tree towers more than 129 feet tall,… [Continue Reading]
Black Hammock Wilderness Area
For those in the know, Black Hammock is a bit of Old Florida still clinging to the old ways along the shores of Lake Jesup, where folks still grow celery and strawberries and ride their horses down dirt roads. It’s a delightful place to visit, and the trail showcases what’s best about Black Hammock—the lush… [Continue Reading]
Blue Spring State Park
If you’ve never seen manatees by the dozens, let alone a hundred or more, there’s no better place in Florida to watch these gentle giants drift past than near Deland along the boardwalk at Blue Spring State Park, paralleling the length of Blue Spring Run to the St. Johns River. This short, easy trail offers… [Continue Reading]
Catfish Creek Preserve State Park
Hang on for one wild walk! Allan David Broussard Catfish Creek Preserve State Park isn’t just “a perfect example of Lake Wales Ridge Scrub,” it’s a landscape unlike any other you’ll find in Florida. The Lake Wales Ridge is a long, slender ridge of ancient sand that stretches from around Clermont most of the way… [Continue Reading]
Circle B Bar Reserve
Sitting along Lake Hancock between Lakeland and Auburndale, Circle B Bar Reserve is a success story that Aldo Leopold would be proud of. Formerly a cattle ranch, the reserve encompasses more than 1,200 acres being successfully restored to its original wetlands habitats feeding the Peace River basin. An extensive network of trails with an outer… [Continue Reading]
Crooked River Preserve
At the northernmost end of the Lake Wales Ridge, a significant landform that stretches from Minneola down towards Lake Okeechobee, creating the “spine” of the Florida peninsula, Crooked River Preserve showcases a wide variety of habitats in a short hike. The high, well-drained sandy soils of the Lake Wales Ridge were prized by citrus growers,… [Continue Reading]
Disney Wilderness Preserve
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 Walt Disney World, this preserve was largely a cattle ranch… [Continue Reading]
Econ River Wilderness
In the suburbs of Orlando, the Econ River Wilderness is in one of those places where you’d never suspect wilderness still existed, 240 acres tucked one road back from strip malls and squeezed between subdivisions on the county line. And for some years, it was drowned by intentional runoff from a newly-constructed housing development onto… [Continue Reading]
Econlockhatchee Sandhills Conservation Area
Nestled up against the floodplain of the Econlockhatchee River, the Econlockhatchee Sandhills Conservation Area is a 706-acre showcase of upland habitat diversity jointly managed by Orange County and the St. Johns Water Management District to the east of Orlando. The high and dry loop trail weaves through sand pine scrub, well-established oak hammocks, pine flatwoods,… [Continue Reading]
Florida Trail, Bronson State Forest
Part of the new corridor that the Florida Trail follows in its arc around the east side of the Orlando metro area. Bronson State Forest – a new addition to the Division of Forestry – now includes a segment of the Florida Trail that replaces the old roadwalk down Fort Christmas Road. Spanning from Orlando… [Continue Reading]
Florida Trail, Little Big Econ
Surrounded by the sprawl of new homes now crowding Oviedo and Chuluota, a sprawl swallowing pastures and orange groves, a ribbon of wilderness remains. It is the Little-Big Econ State Forest, more than 5,000 acres of uplands and cypress swamps flanking the Econlockhatchee River, a true Central Florida treasure. Along its 1,400-mile route across the… [Continue Reading]
Florida Trail, Mills Creek
As the Florida Trail follows the curve of the basin in which Mills Creek drains from Lake Mills into a bowl of marshlands to the east of Chuluota, it leads you through a colorful array of habitats. There are oak hammocks where ancient oaks seem to bend under the weight of streamers of Spanish moss,… [Continue Reading]
Florida Trail, Seminole Ranch
At Seminole Ranch, the Florida Trail follows a string of hydric hammocks in the St. Johns River floodplain, spanning bridges over slow-moving tannic streams with steep sand bluffs. Ferns sprout from the tops and trunks of the cabbage palms. This is a lush, humid environment displaying the full spectrum of green across palm fronds and… [Continue Reading]
Florida Trail, Seminole State Forest
One of the older sections of the Florida Trail near Orlando is also one of its finest. A hike through Seminole State Forest leads you through the kind of vast, open spaces that you’d never imagine, driving along SR 46A or SR 46 or SR 44 around the forest, actually existed on this grand a… [Continue Reading]
Geneva Wilderness Area
My first visit to Geneva Wilderness was also my first Florida Trail activity. I’d driven two hours to meet up with the group and got there as the heavens opened. So we packed it in and went out to dinner at a great fish camp. Luckily, the hike leader – now a dear friend –… [Continue Reading]
Hal Scott Preserve
Vast prairies and seepage bogs, a historic crossing of the Econlockhatchee River, and a campsite set under a live oak canopy—it’s all within minutes of the Orlando International Airport. I fell in love with these broad, open prairies on my first visit, and have sent many friends here since. The preserve’s grasslands host a stunning… [Continue Reading]
Kratzert Tract White Loop
For a quick dip into the beauty of the St. Johns River floodplain, the Kratzert White Loop offers a family-friendly walk beneath ancient oaks and cabbage palms of enormous size. This 1.5-mile loop was originally built by the Central Florida chapter of the Florida Trail Association and continues to be well maintained and easy to… [Continue Reading]
Lake Lotus Park
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… [Continue Reading]
Lake Louisa State Park
In the rolling hills of the Lake Wales Ridge south of Clermont, Lake Louisa is the southernmost lake in the Palatlakaha River chain of lakes, its waters flowing northward to feed Lake Susan, Lake Minehaha, and Lake Minneola. Extending between the park entrance and the recreation area along Lake Louisa, the hiking trails showcase the… [Continue Reading]
Lower Wekiva River Preserve State Park
As one of several “Sandhills Trails” throughout Florida, the Sandhills Nature Trail at Lower Wekiva Preserve State Park lives up to its name. It’s a 2.2-mile loop through longleaf pine and wiregrass, an ecosystem that once covered the uplands of Central Florida. While the scrub along the Wekiva River basin attempts to seep into the… [Continue Reading]
Lyonia Preserve
The Florida scrub jay, one of Florida’s most colorful native birds, is the star of the show at Lyonia Preserve in Deltona, a precious slice of ancient scrub habitat remaining on a high ridge now otherwise topped with housing developments. Recently refurbished and reopened with a new interactive nature center, gift shop, and café, the… [Continue Reading]
Oakland Nature Preserve
One of the closest trail systems to Florida’s Turnpike, Oakland Nature Preserve showcases 128 acres of natural shoreline on Lake Apopka, Florida’s third largest lake and, like Lake Okeechobee, one that has undergone dramatic change due to human intervention. Part of the purpose of this preserve is to educate visitors about the damage done to… [Continue Reading]
Orlando Wetlands Park
The granddaddy of wetlands parks, Orlando Wetlands Park is a City of Orlando wastewater reclamation project that’s become a world-class haven for waterfowl. The project began in the mid-1980s with the acquisition of a dairy farm. Converted to a series of wetland “cells” of varying depths, open pastureland became marsh in which treated wastewater would… [Continue Reading]
Pine Lily Preserve
A showcase for the colorful pine lily (Lilium catesbaei Walter), a threatened species that thrives in wet flatwoods, Pine Lily Preserve protects 409 acres in the Econlockhatchee River basin. Connecting directly to Hal Scott Preserve and Long Branch Preserve, it’s part of a much larger corridor for wildlife to roam north from the prairies of… [Continue Reading]
Reedy Creek Swamp
Although the Osceola District Schools Environmental Study Center is only open to the public on weekends, its trails provide an up-close look at more than a dozen old growth cypresses and wildlife along Reedy Creek. With its headwaters in what is now Walt Disney World, Reedy Creek flows sluggishly southward through cypress swamps into pristine… [Continue Reading]
Spring Hammock Preserve
Fed by a trickle of hidden springs through lush hammocks of cabbage palms, Spring Hammock Preserve in Winter Springs is one of the most delightful places to take a hike in the Orlando area. In this 1,500 acre preserve, the trails are easy to explore. You have options ranging from paved to splashy muddy adventuresome,… [Continue Reading]
Tibet-Butler Preserve
With a big, beautiful nature center and trails that are perfectly groomed or swept, Tibet-Butler Preserve offers a spot of wilderness in the dense urban mass to the west of Orlando. The trail system loops through many of the major habitats found in this region, including longleaf pine forest and scrub, bayhead swamp and cypress-lined… [Continue Reading]
Trimble Park
At the end of a 71-acre peninsula – once an isthmus – between Lake Beauclair and Lake Carlton in the Harris chain of lakes, Trimble Park is an under-the-radar beauty spot of which Orange County should be quite proud. Ancient oaks line both shorelines and are the main feature in the primary part of the… [Continue Reading]
