New to BPL and to the East Coast (Jacksonville).

Hi Mike,

I cannot give any hiking advice since I’m out in CA but just wanted to welcome you to this group and thank you for your service. Hope you make it outside soon.

I’m about as far away from FL as you can get (without a passport), but have you looked at recreation “heat maps” of your new area and broader region?

https://www.strava.com/maps/global-heatmap

You need to sign up to zoom in for more detail.

Hikers, runners, rafters, etc, who’ve left their bread-crumb feature on are tracked and aggregated.  It doesn’t tell WHAT they were doing there, only that people were repeatedly doing something there.

Or, heck, I haven’t dived into it much – maybe there is seasonal tracking to distinguish skiers from hikers.

Conversely, you can use it to avoid people, at least on public lands.

Peakbagger lists only one high point near you.

Suwanee River portion of the Floridia Trail is awesome and it provides a little elevation gain. The Ocala National Forest section of the FT is really good too. More hills (big sand dunes) than you might think. Start in Palatka and hike down approx 50 miles to Altoona. Can be a bit crowded in the Juniper Prairie Wilderness during Winter though. A lot of black bear throughout and good hangs are often hard to find. A light canister such as the Wild Ideas Scout is great but I’m sure some people use Ursacks too. Water is harder to come by than you think because its a karst topography where rain drains right into ground. Maps are available online that show water sources. Floridia Trail Association office is in Gainesville and they have hard copy maps too.

Welcome!

Alltrails (don’t laugh) can be useful for finding trails.  Set difficulty to “hard” and length to something a bit challenging to filter out all the evening dog walkers.

That Strava heat map is interesting.  Tried it my neck of the woods and it populated a few good areas.  It can’t see some of the best ones with no cell service, but that may not be a limitation in Florida.

It will be a drive, but check out the Foothills Trail and the southernmost sections of the Appalachian Trail or Benton McKaye Trail .

Welcome Mike! Fellow 45M here who lived in Ocala for 3 years. We’re back west in N AZ now though. I’ll second everything Monte said as its spot on. Ocala NF and the Florida Trail were definitely my go-to. No mountains (or really even hills frankly) but there is some elevation difference in the right spots. But you gotta remember, Florida’s highest elevation is a ~300′ hill on the border w/ GA, as its heading further up. There just ain’t nothing there. I’ll strongly recommend getting into hammocking if you haven’t yet. Makes FL camping MUCH more doable. Less sand (and bugs!) in your tent, you can be comfy on 80F nights still, lots more options if ground is wet/mushy, etc. To that end, check out HammockForums.net, as there is a good community of hammockers you can hookup with.

I’ve been canoeing in Florida

Maybe there are places you could do overnights.  Maybe rent a canoe or kayak.