[spoiler title=’Click for video transcript’ style=’default’ collapse_link=’true’] I’m here hiking the trails at Lake Kissimmee State Park in Lake Wales Florida so Lake Kissimmee State Park is amazing we decided we could stay out here and camp for a while and my husband reserved the space and I thought why are we out here but it’s out in the middle of nowhere and it’s actually fantastic it is really really quiet except for the wildlife that you may be hearing right now they’ve got over 13 miles of trails and I’ve actually walked all of them barefoot at this point with the exception of a couple little spots I’ll tell you about it’s all been very barefoot friendly no sand Spurs there are a couple of spots that do think the sand will get hot in but so far this week it’s been really rainy and overcast and so the sands been nice and cool the great thing about all of these trails is they’re very well maintained and they’re very well marked too – overall I would say these trails are pretty easy to walk again no real big Hills there are some tree roots that you need to kind of watch out for but overall it’s a nice walk in the woods so there are three main trails in this part the northern trail loop which has been my favorite I saw the most wildlife and it’s just been the best as far as lots of shade and lots of different things to look at and the least amount of bugs and the northern trail is 6 miles long there’s also gobblers Ridge and gobblers Ridge we just walked it yesterday me and my family and it was actually not that Pleasant there it’s really neat at first there’s like this observation tower you can go up in and that’s kind of neat and you can see Lake Kissimmee which is I think the third largest lake in Florida and that’s pretty neat but most of the trail is out in the Blazing Sun and it’s just on sand and I just didn’t enjoy it that much also when you get to Lake Kissimmee there are tons of bugs that’s the part where we just turned around and left because it was very very marshy and there were like a million mosquitoes and even my husband who never gets bit it was like we’re getting out of here so so we didn’t walk that whole thing and the last one that I did was the buster island loop and it’s 6.7 miles and there were a lot of neat things on that one there are some amazing oak trees this whole park is just filled with like you know 200 plus year old oak trees and they are fabulous but one thing about the Buster Island loop is when you get about halfway around it it kind of gets out in a lot of Sun and there are a lot of dead trees kind of like maybe what you’re seeing behind me right now I’m currently on the northern loop right now but there were also a lot of bugs in fact there was one really pernicious bug in particular that got really mad at me for some reason and chased me for a very long way and I was running as fast as I could to get away from it and I actually lost the trail even though it’s very well marked it’s totally my fault but I ended up on the service road and I was able to find my way back but just be aware that you know you might find a lot of bugs on Buster island loop it was really hard for me to find the beginning of the trail for some reason but basically if you do come here and you want to go in that trail just go across the bridge and then you’ll be able to easily get on it wildlife I’ve spotted on these trails deer I saw a redheaded woodpecker which I’d never seen before in the wild lots of armadillos lizards I saw two black snakes lots of gopher tortoises bald eagles a barred owl a really big Gator at the canal which is on the gobbler trail and I saw a lot of little southern toads they were juvenile so they’re really cute also this is a great place for birding there are over 200 different species here so and I’ve seen a lot of different little ones that I don’t even know what the names of them are lots of butterflies – fun fact I’m afraid of butterflies but overall if you’ve never been to Lake Kissimmee State Park I would highly recommend you come this is the first I’ve lived in Florida since 2014 and this is the first place I’ve ever been to I think in Florida where I really could not hear cars anywhere so if you want to get out in the middle of nowhere but still have cell phone signal then give Lake Kissimmee a try [/spoiler]
Summary: If you have a hankering to get out in the middle of nowhere in Florida, Lake Kissimmee State Park is a great place to go. It has over 13 miles of trails, all of which I found to be very barefoot friendly. There’s tons of wildlife to look at, and the 200 year old oak trees found abundantly in the park create an awesome experience.
Location: 14248 Camp Mack Rd. Lake Wales , FL 33898
Length of trail: Buster Island Loop: 6.7 miles, Northern Loop (my favorite!) 6 miles, Gobbler Ridge: 2.8 miles
Skill level: Beginner. It’s very flat, well maintained, and the trails are very well marked.
Wildlife I spotted while on the trail: Lizards, squirrels, butterflies, two black racer snakes, a big gator in the Zipprer Canal, a lot of armadillos, lots of deer (many in at our campsite as well!), red headed woodpecker, barred owl, bald eagle, gopher tortoise, juvenile Southern toads
Barefoot hiking friendliness: Very barefoot friendly. There are a few spots on the trail where there’s a lot of sun and sand, so if you’re out hiking in the middle of the day, the sand might get uncomfortably hot. Also, since this is a forest, be careful to mind the tree roots. I bruised the bottom of my foot on one of those on a family hike we did on the Buster Island Loop.
Official Website: Lake Kissimmee State Park
Trail Map: Lake Kissimmee State Park Trail Map