An excerpt from Florida Parks: A Guide to Camping and Nature, by Gerald Grow.

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The Range of Parks in Florida How do you decide where to camp in Florida? With so many different agencies running so many different kinds of parks, you may feel overwhelmed at first, even if you have decided what parts of the state you want to visit. You may want a wilderness experience but unknowingly choose a busy, noisy urban park. Or you may just want a place to park the RV, watch television, and feed the pet ducks--and instead spend an unprepared night alone in a primitive area, miles from the conveniences you need. This guide will help you avoid mistakes like these and choose parks where you will find the kind of experience you are looking for. It helps to think of Florida parks as a balance of two things: recreation and nature. The balance between developed facilities and undeveloped natural area can tell you a lot about what to expect and guide you in choosing where to visit. With this guide in mind, you can decide how much your main interest lies with active recreation--tennis, softball, swimming, beach activities, etc.--and how much it lies in a more contemplative experience of undisturbed wild nature--such as hiking, camping, scenic photography, birding, and nature study. At one extreme you find neighborhood playgrounds, softball fields, swimming pools and school yards--which require no "nature" at all, just enough open space to put a facility in. At the other extreme, there are the preserves and wilderness areas, places almost entirely for nature, with very few facilities. Between these extremes, over a dozen different types of Florida parks offer you many different kinds of activities and many different blends of recreation and nature. Because this guide is concerned with camping, we will not deal with playgrounds, golf courses, country clubs, miniparks, or picnic stops. (Camping is not allowed in highway rest areas in Florida.) But we include some city parks that have camping facilities--many of which include playgrounds, ball fields, swimming areas, golf courses, or other recreational facilities, often in a setting of lovely oaks or beautiful lakes. There are more county parks, which offer extended recreational space and facilities--often several hundred acres of playing fields, tennis courts, running tracks, golf ranges, and swimming areas, with areas of mowed lawn, open forest, and wooded walks. Fort DeSoto, Wickham, and Crandon are good examples of county parks. Regional parks are still rare in Florida. They offer more space for nature-oriented recreation--more room to hike or run outdoors, more bicycle paths, larger areas for wildlife and nature study. These may be the green belts around urban areas. Regional parks may include marshlands and other wildlife areas, and are sometimes located on land that must be kept natural to protect the local water supply. The Savannas, Lower Hillsborough River, and Starkey Wilderness belong in this class. In the middle of the scale, State Recreation Areas have roughly 50 percent of their area developed for "active" recreation and 50 percent left in the natural state. Anastasia State Recreation Area is a good example. Most of what you see is the fine stretch of beach, extensive picnic areas, a large campground, and good spots for fishing. But behind this highly-used portion of the park, there are quieter woods of rich coastal hammock, nature trails, and places kept just for the wildlife. The undeveloped natural areas help maintain a high-quality environment in the high-use recreational areas of the park. Without these natural areas, visitors would see much less wildlife and birdlife, and the feel of the beach would be subtly but devastatingly degraded. That unused 50 percent of the park is what gives depth and quality to the heavily-used half. State Parks have still more natural area--80 percent or more. The state parks in Florida serve to perpetuate samples of the original Florida landscape in its natural condition, often looking as it did when the first Europeans saw it hundreds of years ago. The most commonly visited areas in state parks frequently have rich wildlife and birdlife. Plant communities are larger and more varied. State parks offer visitors good access to some of the finest, most authentic natural areas in Florida. The facilities and activities in state parks are all tuned to make possible a deep experience of nature. The campgrounds are excellent, but do not attempt to provide all the latest conveniences. There are few active recreational facilities (like ball fields), and, except for a few rustic rental cabins in a few parks, there are no lodges or hotels. Instead, a high-quality segment of the original Florida terrain provides the enduring attraction at Florida state parks. While county parks and state recreation areas often have ranger-led activities, those in state parks are more extensive. State parks often contain museums and exhibits; many also have important historical sites (such as O'Leno and Fort Clinch). A state park may have remote areas that are hard to get to, or virtually impossible to penetrate--like the mangroves of Collier-Seminole. A few contain wilderness preserves. State parks and state recreation areas usually permit fishing, but hunting, timbering, mining, collecting of plants, animals, rocks, and other "consumptive" uses are prohibited. If you think how thousands of such acts, over years, would progressively alter the natural environment and make it into a man-shaped environment, you can understand the rule. For the same reason, the feeding of wildlife is strictly prohibited; it makes them artificially dependent upon human food. The State and National Forests, which this book also covers, are active, working forests containing many thousands of acres of woods, most of which are under cultivation for timber production. You may encounter timbering activities or signs of cutting and planting on your visit. Portions of these forests, and certain timbering operations, are planned and managed to promote deer, turkey, quail, and other game animals, or to protect certain endangered species. The state and national forests in Florida permit hunting in season and allow some other uses, such as cattle grazing, oil wells, and mining. Recreational areas in the public forests range from highly developed, popular campgrounds (like Juniper Springs and Silver Lake) to remote primitive sites with few or no facilities. These are described in appropriate chapters of this book. State and national forests offer naturalist programs, and certain campgrounds have regular ranger-led activities. More adventurous visitors can make their own campsites in remote areas of the national forests. State and national forests offer easy access to large outdoor areas. By contrast, state and national parks (and preserves) offer more regulated access to more pristine natural environments. A new type of outdoor area, the Greenway, connects existing public lands with natural corridors that can be used for wildlife migration and outdoor recreation, especially hiking and biking trails. National Wildlife Refuges exist still more for the benefit of nature, and less for active recreation by visitors. The natural setting is managed for wildlife preservation, with room for compatible outdoor recreation, such as hiking, fishing, nature study, photography, scenic appreciation, and the renewal that comes from being out in nature. Refuges are outstanding places to observe birds and wildlife. Most refuges permit some kind of hunting in season, and since this happens during the best time of the year for hiking, the two may conflict. National Wildlife Refuges do not permit camping and often provide only minimal facilities for visitors. As outdoor space becomes more and more rare, refuges will become increasingly important to both wildlife and people. Although originally established to perpetuate ducks and other hunted waterfowl, refuges increasingly provide homes for birds and animals that are losing their habitat elsewhere. They are also playing an increasing role in environmental education. National Parks and National Seashores seek to perpetuate a major natural environment. In Florida, the vast and fragile Everglades, a string of islands in Biscayne Bay, and a remote island fort in the Dry Tortugas are the only national parks. A few sections of a national park, such as Flamingo in the Everglades, may be highly developed--even containing motels and restaurants--but the vast proportion of park land is natural, and sizable portions are pure wilderness. National parks and seashores are dedicated to preserving an outstanding natural area--a true natural resource-- while encouraging compatible outdoor recreation. Like the Florida state parks, they preserve a viable portion of our natural heritage and protect it for us and our descendants to enjoy. Florida's national parks have excellent exhibits, talks, trails, and naturalist-led interpretive programs. Sanctuaries, though tiny compared to national parks, move a step further in the direction of preserving nature and offering very limited, high-quality visitor experiences. Corkscrew Swamp is a fine example, and one of the few sanctuaries in Florida. Sanctuaries do not have camping facilities and usually preserve some especially critical remnant of natural Florida--a vital rookery for the endangered wood stork, one of the last virgin cypress swamps, a very rare uncut pine flatwoods. Smaller still, Environmental Education Centers earn a special place on this list. These are day-use facilities, many of which have nature trails, boardwalks, exhibits and classes. Such centers give residents and visitors alike a unique opportunity to learn about nature in Florida. State Preserves are large areas, ten to thirty thousand acres, that have been set aside to maintain a living portion of Florida's original environment, free from major human disturbance. These are immensely valuable parks. In order for the diverse and fragile balance of nature to continue relatively undisturbed, preserves have to be large and undeveloped. Waccasassa Bay is a good example. It consists mainly of thousands of acres of water and salt marsh, prolific with life, with scattered tree-islands and a tangle of snake-tongued estuarine creeks. It is a place where you can still read the original expression on the face of nature. All the preserves are miracles of environment. They are among the few places in the East where you can see animals living entirely in their original natural setting, without significant interference by humans. Preserves have few if any visitor facilities and are available only for limited, careful use. This may include hiking, canoeing, and some primitive camping. Preserves are places for nature and for visitors who want to go out of their way to study, appreciate, commune with, and protect nature. Since they contain relatively undisturbed ecosystems, preserves are frequently used for scientific study. Reserves are preserve-like areas managed by more than one agency. Reserves permit at least one "consumptive" use--typically forestry or hunting. Tosohatchee State Reserve is an example. Wilderness areas, which are found in some state parks, preserves, national forests, and national parks are closed to motorized vehicles and offer the very rare opportunity to hike or canoe into a region virtually untouched by human activities. Most wilderness areas in Florida permit primitive camping from canoe or backpack. To protect fragile areas and to offer a real wilderness experience, the number of visitors is often restricted. Wilderness areas that permit camping are found at St. Josephs Peninsula State Park, Myakka River State Park, Collier-Seminole State Park, Gulf Islands National Seashore, and at Bradwell Bay in the Apalachicola National Forest. Wilderness areas without camping are found at St. Marks and Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuges, and Canaveral National Seashore. Other areas function like wilderness areas, such as the remote reaches of Everglades National Park and the state preserves. A wilderness-like experience is available in several other parks that have backpack trails which lead to a primitive campsite. These include Jonathan Dickenson State Park, Myakka State Park, and portions of the statewide Florida Trail (see Addresses). State historic sites, state archaeological sites, and national historic memorials do not fit on this scale, because they are not primarily concerned with recreation or nature, but with the preservation of important historical sites. Most of these offer some recreational opportunities, including visits to the historical site itself and other activities like fishing, picnicking, hiking, or nature study. Some historic sites have wonderful natural settings and even campgrounds, like Koreshan State Historic Site. A growing number have intriguing living history reenactments, in which rangers wear period clothing and play the part of the people whose presence made the site memorable. Living history programs are found at Castillo de San Marcos National Historical Monument, Marjorie Rawlings State Historic Site, Olustee Battlefield State Historic Site, in Fort Clinch and Kissimmee State Parks, and others. The public parks in some states contain lodges, rental cabins, and amusement rides. Florida parks emphasize the setting. They are scenic, natural areas, many of which contain attractive but unlavish campgrounds. The numerous private campgrounds (not covered in this book) offer a wide variety of settings and amenities. They range from crowded urban RV parks to fish camps on remote rivers. Facilities range from luxurious to casual. In the past, private campgrounds have been more expensive than public parks, but recently that gap has narrowed or closed. As part of your preparation for a camping trip to Florida, I highly recommend that you write Tourist Information or the Florida Campground Association and ask for the free guide to private campgrounds. (See Addresses.) If you have little interest in nature but primarily seek convenience, security, familiarity, and easy access to developed tourist attractions, you may do best to stay in a private campground, hotel, or motel, instead of a public park. And if you want to go on jungle cruises, watch alligator wrestling, see ski shows, spend your afternoons on amusement rides, watch trained dolphins--there are private attractions throughout the state that provide this and much more. But not the public parks. With the exception of a few low-key tram and boat tours, public parks offer no amusement activities. Public parks in Florida are about outdoor recreation. That's two things: a quality outdoor natural environment, and opportunities for recreation compatible with that environment. I hope the "scale of parks" described here will help you choose the right mix of nature and recreation for you. With a few exceptions, this book details those public parks that have camping facilities or that preserve some outstanding feature--natural or historic. Most of these fall on the scale between the larger city parks and the state reserves. The GEOparks mentioned in official listings of State Parks are not parks at all. They are administrative offices that manage two or more nearby parks. New parks can be found in all stages of development, because it normally takes several years to purchase, equip, and open a park to the public. Outstanding examples of partially-opened parks have been included in this edition, so you can take advantage of their limited activities now and anticipate what they will offer when fully opened to the public.

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