Reeds on lake edge and kayaker in St Joseph Peninsula State Park, Florida.

© NetaDegany / E+ / Getty

TH Stone Memorial St Joseph Peninsula State Park

Top choice in Gulf Coast


This lovely park, a quilt of beach and pine forest, brackish bays and fuzzy salt marsh, is a fine slice of increasingly rare Gulf Coast wilderness. Visitors can wander amid sugar-sand beaches that stretch for 2516 acres along grassy, undulating dunes, edging wilderness trails. Cyclists, walkers and bladers can set out on the Loggerhead Run Bike Path, named for the turtles that inhabit the island, which runs about 9 miles to Salinas Park.


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