Robert Silk
Stories in this newsletter often detail the many luxurious resorts and world famous destinations that Florida has to offer, and with good reason.
After all, the state has an enormous array of upscale lodging properties, many of them beachfront, from the Panhandle all the way down to Key West. And aside from sun, surf and sand, nothing attracts more people to the Sunshine State than the Orlando area, which is the world's mecca for theme parks.
But despite its generally less-than-rustic reputation, Florida is also more than worth visiting for its diverse and outstanding array of state parks. Indeed, the system, made up of 174 parks, is the only one in the U.S. to have won the sought-after gold medal as the nation's best state park system from the National Recreation and Park Association on three occasions.
It's no wonder: The parks encompass 100 miles of beaches and 800,000 acres of trails. In the Florida Keys, state park visitors can snorkel along the most extensive coral reef system in the U.S. In central Florida they can visit clear-water springs, like Wekiwa Springs State Park in Orlando, where manatees congregate in the winter and where year-round water temperatures in the low 70s make for refreshing swimming holes in the summer.
Some parks, like Caladesi Island and Caya Costa on the Gulf of Mexico, occupy islands and are accessible only by boat. Others, such as Paynes Creek, located on the site of a former Seminole Wars-era fort to the south of Lakeland, preserve historic sites.
In my travels around the Sunshine State, I've been fortunate to visit quite a few of them. Among my favorites is Topsail Hill State Preserve along the Walton County coast in the Panhandle. Topsail's towering sand dunes stand sentinel over the adjacent sugar sand Gulf beaches and dispel the notion many have that Florida is largely devoid of any sort of interesting topography. During a trip to South Walton last June, I strolled the beach line of Topsail for well over an hour as sunset approached, seeing hardly a soul as the ocean was visible off one shoulder and the sand dunes were visible off the other.
Contrasting sharply with Topsail is another of my favorite Florida state parks, the 75,000-acre Fakahatchee Strand Preserve about 30 miles east of Naples. The Fakahatchee isn't necessarily for the faint of heart: It's a seasonal swamp where bug spray is often needed and alligators might block the hiking trails.
But for those who really want to experience the wild, its offers austere and mysterious beauty as well as an astounding mix of trees, plants and wildlife, including 47 orchid species. Indeed, the Fakahatchee is known to some as Florida's Amazon.
Horseshoe Reef in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park off Key Largo.
Of course, being a resident of Key Largo, I'd be remiss to leave John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park off my list of favorites. The lone undersea park in the country at the time of its founding in 1963, Pennekamp protects the reefs off Key Largo, which are generally thought to be the best in Florida aside, perhaps, from those in the isolated preserves around the Dry Tortugas, more than 70 miles off Key West.
I generally view the reefs of Pennekamp on a snorkel tour. But concessionaires also ferry divers to the underwater gardens. And glass-bottom boats offer viewing opportunities for those who are not able or not inclined to get in to the ocean.