Florida Hiking

What Florida's landscape lacks in topography, it makes up for in diversity, ranging from temperate Appalachian-style forests to tangled tropical jungles. Here hikers enjoy a broad range of habitats and wildlife that only Hawaii and California surpass. Trails pass through desert-like scrub islands, jungle-like hydric hammocks, and deep, dark bayous where giant cypress trees rise out of inky water. Footpaths range through salt marshes, river floodplains, and along coastal dunes and beaches with sparkling white sand. Florida has the world's only Everglades, and the delightful landforms of karst—disappearing lakes and streams, yawning sinkholes lush with ferns, and the world's largest concentration of first-magnitude springs. More than 1,200 contiguous miles of the Florida National Scenic Trail stretch from the beaches of Pensacola, at the western edge of the Panhandle, to the Big Cypress Swamp in the Everglades.

In the entire continental United States, only South Florida can lay claim to truly tropical habitats with native tropical plants. Rare ghost orchids grow in the humid depths of the Big Cypress, a region of vast prairies, haunting cypress strands, and deep sloughs filled with alligator flag. From its traditional start at Lake Okeechobee, the world's only Everglades sweep southward. North of Lake Okeechobee lie the remnants of ancient sand dunes forming high and dry scrub habitats, while along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coastlines the freshwater marshes of the interior meet the mangrove swamps of the barrier islands. In the Florida Keys, jungles of Caribbean plants top fossilized coral reefs surrounded by still aquamarine waters.