State Parks offer Fun along Florida’s Panhandle Coast

Getting lots of sunshine and fresh air in Florida’s state parks helps visitors realize the health and fitness benefits of an active lifestyle. Millions of people from around the world flock to Florida every year to swim, build sand castles and walk along miles of sugary-white beaches. Along the panhandle coast, more than a dozen state parks beckon visitors to soak up nature, including Topsail Hill Preserve and Grayton Beach.

Topsail Hill Preserve State Park features 3.2 miles of secluded, white sand beaches with dunes more than 25 feet high. The park is a bird-watching and hiking paradise. Visitors can bike, walk or ride the park tram to the beach. Three rare coastal dune lakes provide fishing enthusiasts with opportunities to catch bass, bream, pan fish and catfish.

The Preserve is home to several varieties of carnivorous plants such as Sundews and rare pitcher plants, including the white-top and parrot whose red and purple flowers resemble a parrot’s beak. These carnivorous plants fill a sticky membrane with nectar, trapping the unsuspecting insects that land inside.

Grayton Beach State Park also provides an idyllic setting for swimming, sunbathing and surf fishing along more than a mile of sandy white beach. The beach was rated the Best Beach in the nation in 1994 by Dr. ‘Beach,’ a coastal geologist at Florida International University. Visitors can canoe or kayak on Western Lake, and a boat ramp provides access to the lake’s brackish waters for both freshwater and saltwater fishing. A nature trail winds across the beach and through a coastal forest of scrub oaks and magnolias. Bent and twisted by salt winds, the trees provide habitat for the endangered beach mouse. Hikers and bicyclists can explore more than four miles of trails through the pine flatwoods.

Both parks offer full facility campgrounds, RV hookups and modern cabins with central air and heat. Cabins at Topsail Hill are fully equipped with all appliances and include cable TV. Grayton Beach cabins provide the same comforts with a little more solitude --- sans television and telephone.

Accommodations are not reserved to humans. More than 150 species of birds have been recorded at Topsail Preserve and more than 90 species visit the pine flatwoods and scrub communities at Grayton Beach. These along with other panhandle coastal state parks provide habitat for the endangered beach mouse and are also a good place to see rare sea turtles that come ashore during nesting season, from May 1 through October 31.

Visit any one of Florida’s 160 award-winning state parks during July to celebrate National Recreation and Parks Month and to experience the Real Florida. For more information, visit www.FloridaStateParks.org.