Camping close to NE Florida
Since our recent camping trip with Theresa and Pat at Disney’s Fort Wilderness, we’ve been talking about where we’ll meet up next. I work with some avid campers and one of them was nice enough to put together a little packet of her favorite places convenient to Jacksonville that she likes to take her 5-year-old grandson. I specifically asked about woodsy places (as opposed to our Disney experience) that are still kid friendly.
So here were her suggestions:
- Salt Springs Campground at the Ocala National Forest
- Crooked River State Park in Georgia
- Hanna Park Campground here in Jacksonville
- Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine
- Rock Crusher Canyon Park in Crystal River, Florida
- Ginnie Springs Outdoors in High Springs, Florida
Here’s my first impressions:
- The Ginnie Springs camp sites are first come first served so may not be the best option for us. Plus, I’ve been to Ginnie Springs and the water is frigid. Great idea in the hot summer months but who wants to camp in Florida in the summer?
- Hanna Park is in Jacksonville and might be a better day event for us.
- I can’t tell if the Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park allows tent campers or not.
We’ll be looking at these closely when we decide where to camp next and report back. If anyone else has any other suggestions, we’d love to hear them.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
I love the beach, and would be partial to St. Augustine through September (maybe even mid-October). I’m not much for the woods in September, particularly if it’s buggy 
I’ll check out the Georgia option, though, too - it would be fun to go somewhere new. Georgia been in severe drought for the past year - we’d need to check out the water situation (one north-Georgia park had the campsite spigots turned off).
I would vote for Ocala/Crystal River if we were to go when it is cooler - maybe Nov.- Dec.
I checked out some reviews of the campsites listed, and every review I saw of Crooked River mentioned bugs!!! So I think we should take that one off the list for tent camping.
I saw several positive comments about Salt Springs Recreational Area (Ocala) - so I’d be on board with that one.
There’s one other park in north Florida that sounded pretty nice, Florida Caverns State Park (Marietta). They give tours of the caverns, and it seems like there were some kids activities listed. Can you ask around and see if anyone you know would recommend?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Loading ...
I’m kinda partial to being near the ocean. Gives us something cheap to do with the kids.