#kayak
14 posts tagged.
Anastasia Salt Run — A Kayak Loop Five Minutes from St Augustine's Tourist Crush
St Augustine gets four million visitors a year. Almost none of them know that on the bay side of Anastasia State Park there's a sheltered tidal estuary, three miles of kayak loop through mangrove edges, where you'll see jumping mullet, the occasional dolphin, and zero tour buses.
Florida Bioluminescence — Where to See Glowing Water, When the Season Hits, and Why the Indian River Lagoon Is Special
From late June through October, a 156-mile stretch of the Indian River Lagoon system lights up like cold blue fire under your paddle. Here's the statewide guide — the species, the seasons, the launches, the outfitters, and the etiquette that keeps the glow alive.
Florida Bay Backcountry — A Multi-Day Kayak Expedition Through the Last American Wilderness
The Wilderness Waterway runs 99 miles through Everglades National Park, from Everglades City to Flamingo. You sleep on elevated wooden platforms called chickees, eat what you carry, paddle through mangrove tunnels nobody's named, and share the water with the only American population where…
Ichetucknee Springs in Winter — When the Tubing Crowd Leaves and the Springs Open Up
From November to April the tube concession is closed and the river belongs to paddlers, divers, and exactly one manatee herd. The Blue Hole alone is reason enough to drive here from anywhere.
Indian River Lagoon Dolphins — Florida's 1,000-Strong Resident Pod
The Indian River Lagoon holds 1,000+ resident bottlenose dolphins, each cataloged by dorsal fin. Here's where to paddle to find them, the federal viewing rules, and the water-quality crisis that's reshaping their world.
Jonathan Dickinson — The Wild River, Hobe Mountain, and South Florida's Most Overlooked Big Park
Eleven thousand five hundred acres of pine flatwoods and sand-pine scrub thirty minutes north of Jupiter, wrapped around the first federally Wild & Scenic River in Florida. Tourists drive past it forever. Locals know it's the wildest piece of land in a hundred-mile radius.
Juniper Springs — Seven Miles of Jungle Paddle Through the Ocala National Forest
An hour from Orlando, the Juniper Springs Run is a 7-mile creek of 72-degree clear water through dense sub-tropical jungle — narrow enough that palm fronds brush your shoulders, slow enough that you drift, public enough that you can rent a kayak and a shuttle and be on the water in 20 minutes. Most paddlers…
Loxahatchee River — Florida's Only Wild & Scenic Kayak River, Jupiter to Trapper Nelson
There are 209 federally-designated Wild & Scenic Rivers in the United States. Two are in Florida. The Loxahatchee — nine paddleable miles from Jupiter through cypress forest to the old Trapper Nelson homestead — is the one nobody outside South Florida talks about. Alligators on every bank. Manatees in winter.
Mosquito Lagoon Bioluminescence — Paddling Through Living Light on Summer Nights
On a new-moon night in Mosquito Lagoon, every paddle stroke draws a blue swirl, every fish flashes a tracer, every dolphin pass outlines itself in cold fire. Here's when to go, where to launch, and what it actually looks like.
Oleta River — How to SUP Through Mangrove Tunnels in the Middle of Miami
Oleta River State Park is fifteen minutes from downtown Miami. It has 1,000 acres of mangrove tunnels, an outfitter that rents SUP and kayak by the hour, and visibility most weekday mornings of nobody-but-you. The full paddle is two hours.
Suwannee River Wilderness Trail — 207 Miles of Florida's Last Wild River
207 river miles from the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp to the salt marsh at Cedar Key. Tannic black water under thousand-year cypress, eight elevated river camps, no permits beyond a bunk reservation. Florida's official long-distance paddle trail — and the most committed one in the state.
Ten Thousand Islands Kayak Expedition — Mangrove Tunnels, Oyster Bars, and the Wildest 3-Day Paddle in Florida
Thirty-five thousand acres of mangrove islands south of Marco. Launch at Chokoloskee, paddle out to Tiger Key or Pavilion, sleep on a beach where the only footprints are raccoons and your own. Three days, two nights, twenty-eight miles, five other boats if you're unlucky. The expedition planner.
Wakulla River Paddle — A 9-Mile Cypress Tunnel With Manatees and Gators
Nine miles of gin-clear spring water through cypress tunnel in the Florida panhandle, fed by one of the world's largest springs. Manatees year-round, alligators on every bank, a beginner current, and a turn-key shuttle out of St. Marks. The densest wildlife paddle in the state.
Wekiwa Springs — Orlando's Front-Yard Wilderness
Twenty minutes from Disney, the parking lot ends and a 7,800-acre wild spring begins. Wekiwa is Orlando's front-yard wilderness — a first-magnitude spring, a 13-mile blackwater paddle, alligators, black bears, and a 72°F bowl most tourists never find.