Outdoor gear goes way beyond swimsuits, beach umbrellas and golf clubs in the Sunshine State.
Don’t forget your fins because you might go snorkeling. Or your goggles if you decide to view the state’s natural beauty in an ultralight plane or hot-air balloon. Definitely bring along comfortable shoes because there are birding trails, hiking trails and scenic trails of every kind in Florida, threading past interesting trail towns, bluffs and springs through a landscape of cypress forests, moss-draped live oaks, pine flatwoods and semi-tropical ecosystems.
Matching the many land trails criss-crossing the state are innumerable canoe and paddling trails along inland and coastal waterways that include everything from quiet streams to swift-flowing rivers.
Meanwhile, land and water recreation combine at scores of state parks, some with beaches, concessions, rentals and overnight facilities, and others offering a more hands-off atmosphere, leaving nothing between you and the wilderness.
"Team-building adventures can take place on a variety of hiking, biking, equestrian or water trails around the state," notes Joyce Stillwell, director of sales for Visit Florida, the state’s official tourism marketing corporation. "Your attendees can have hands-on learning experiences, like swimming with manatees, visiting the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail with an ornithologist or exploring an underground cavern with a state park ranger. The possibilities are endless."
Interior Designs
To find the natural side of Florida, you might have to turn your back on the beach and head inland, where the Sunshine State expands into a verdant landscape of wilderness preserves and lush forests, including Ocala National Forest, the southernmost forest in the continental U.S. and about an hour north of Orlando, where fishing, hiking, horseback riding, canoeing and camping can keep your group busy for a day—or a week.
A trip through time is waiting at the Babcock-Webb Wildlife Management Area near Punta Gorda, once part of Calusa Indian territory, a tribe that dominated Southwest Florida for millennia before the arrival of the Europeans. Today, the pine flatwoods where the Calusa once hunted deer is a carefully tended expanse of dry and wet prairies, freshwater marshes and a variety of lakes and ponds.
Nearby, Babcock Wilderness Adventures can help your group explore part of this vast expanse, as 90-minute swamp buggy tours cut through the rugged terrain of the Telegraph Cypress Swamp, where sightings of panthers and deer are common, while alligators are often bold enough to come within a few yards of the vehicle.
Another slice of frontier life is waiting southeast of Kissimmee at Forever Florida, a 4,700-acre cattle and horse ranch that offers coach and horseback safaris into a wildlife conservation area that is home to black bears, white-tail deer, gators and nearly 200 species of birds. New zip-line safaris take in the view 55 feet off the ground, reaching speeds of 25 miles an hour. Meanwhile, Forever Florida’s visitor center includes a private meeting room with full audiovisual support.
Once you’ve crossed into the southern half of South Florida, the word "interior" can only refer to one thing—the lush, mysterious Everglades, the state’s "River of Grass" and the only subtropical preserve in North America. Covering more than 1.5 million acres of sawgrass prairies, cypress swamps, hardwood hammocks and mangrove forests, the Everglades is home to a unique collection of birds and animals, and is the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles exist side by side.
Much of the "River of Grass" is contained and protected within Everglades National Park, easily accessible from Miami and Fort Lauderdale on the east, and Naples and Marco Island on the west. Visitor centers on both sides are the launch point for walking trails, while at the Gulf Coast Visitor Center in Everglades City, you can purchase tickets for daily guided boat trips into the mangrove estuaries of the Ten Thousand Islands section of the park.
Rock the Boat
Subtracting the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, Florida is still overflowing with all kinds of water-based adventures, including paddling treks along an extensive network of inland waterways once traversed by native tribes.
Groups meeting in North Florida will have access to the fabled Suwannee River, which rises from the Okefenokee Swamp on the Florida/Georgia border and traces a meandering course past a number of recreational and historical sites before making a leisurely exit into the Gulf of Mexico. For much of the way, its tea-colored waters are framed by limestone bluffs and moss-draped cypress trees, the stillness broken only by wading birds, swimming turtles and the occasional passing canoe.
If time is limited, try a leisurely two-hour tubing trip on the Ichetucknee Springs River, which flows near Lake City for six miles through shaded hammocks and wetlands before joining the Santa Fe River.
Ichetucknee is but one of many crystal-clear springs saturating the landscape in North Florida, inviting paddlers, swimmers and assorted water sports enthusiasts to savor a refreshing water temperature that hovers near 72 degrees all year long. Your group can make a day of it at Wakulla Springs State Park near Tallahassee, home to one of the largest and deepest freshwater springs in the world and also offering a historic lodge with 27 guest rooms and facilities for classroom-style meetings as well as banquets.
In Central Florida, Seminole County, Orlando’s neighbor to the north, bills itself as "Florida’s Natural Choice" and lives up to that distinction with cool forests and spectacular spring-fed lakes, lush wooded areas and slow, lazy rivers that welcome unhurried paddling excursions.
To the east, groups meeting in Daytona Beach will be within striking distance of guided fishing trips and boating excursions on the St. Johns River, one of the few rivers in America that flows south to north.
Meanwhile, paddlers will want to get those kayaks primed for a trek down the Great Calusa Blueway Paddling Trail, encompassing nearly 190 miles of waterways running through the Beaches of Fort Myers & Sanibel, including tributaries of the mighty Caloosahatchee River and trails charted 2,000 years earlier by Calusa Indians.
