How this picture was made
Photorealistic landscape photograph in soft golden dawn light in central Florida: a crystal-clear turquoise spring run flowing over a white sandy bottom through a subtropical forest of cypress and longleaf pine, palmetto along the banks, still clear water, no people, no boats, no buildings, no signs. 35mm lens, natural color, faint film grain.
National Forests in Florida
Camp here — National Forests in Florida
56 camps mapped in this forest, 32 of them free. Tap one for its topo and aerial, the weather, the water, and how far you will be from fuel and a shower.
- FreeDavenport Landing
- FreeHitchcock Hunt Camp & Boat Ramp
- FreeBig Gulley Hunt Camp & Boat Ramp
- FreePorter Hunt Camp & Trailhead
- FreeBuckhorn Hunt Camp
- FreeMagnolia Hunt Camp
- FreeDog Lake Day Use Area
- FreeSilver Lake
Where dispersed camping is listed — National Forests in Florida
The Forest Service lists dispersed camping as an activity at these 25 places. That is the agency saying it is allowed somewhere in the area — not a campsite we have mapped, and not a spot we can put a pin on. Read their page, then check the district for the rules that apply on the day.
- Apalachicola National Forest
The Apalachicola National Forest is home to some of the most unique animal and plant species in the world. Here, visitors can enjoy safe, family-friendly activities such as fishing, hunting, hiking and trail-riding while…
the Forest Service page for it → - Big Gully Landing
With Big Gully Landing's native-surfaced boat ramp, boaters can follow Equaloxic Creek six miles to the Apalachicola River. Camping This primitive camping area serves as a hunt camp during the winter hunting season.
the Forest Service page for it → - Bradwell Bay Wilderness
A swamp thick with titi trees, distinguished by their leathery leaves and fragrant white flowers, dominates the second largest Wilderness in Florida. Here, you'll also find a swampland of hardwoods or pine-titi mixtures and small…
the Forest Service page for it → - Brown House Hunt Camp
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Hunting This location is used primarily as a hunt camp during general gun season.
the Forest Service page for it → - Buckhorn Hunt Camp
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Hunting This location is used primarily as a hunt camp during general gun season.
the Forest Service page for it → - Clear Lake Wilderness Study Area
Designated by Congress in the Florida Wilderness Act of 1983, Clear Lake Wilderness Study Area could be considered "the future of wilderness." Wilderness study areas have many of the same characteristics of a designated…
the Forest Service page for it → - Cliff Lake Hunt Camp
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Hunting This location is used primarily as a hunt camp during general gun season.
the Forest Service page for it → - Cobb Hunt Camp
If you're looking for a nice quiet spot outside of the city, the primitive Cobb Hunt Camp is perfect for you. The campground sits under the pines of the Osceola National Forest, located between Ocean Pond and Olustee Battlefield,…
the Forest Service page for it → - Cotton Landing
Cotton Landing, on Kennedy Creek, is a favorite of fishermen and canoeists alike. Its lazy, winding current has breathtaking views into the heart of a cypress swamp. From Cotton Landing, it's a 4-mile trip to the Apalachicola…
the Forest Service page for it → - Harpers Hunt Camp
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Hunting This location is used primarily as a hunt camp during general gun season.
the Forest Service page for it → - Hitchcock Lake
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Boating Small motorboats can take advantage of the excellent fishing on the Ochlockonee by boat launches (called landings) at SR 20, Pine Creek , Whitehead Lake , Revell…
the Forest Service page for it → - Juniper Prairie Wilderness
Protecting the heart of the Big Scrub, the 14,283-acre Juniper Prairie Wilderness is perhaps the best known of the four wilderness areas in the Ocala National Forest thanks to its frontage and prominent signage on SR 40 - the…
the Forest Service page for it → - Magnolia Landing
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Hunting This location is used primarily as a hunt camp during general gun season.
the Forest Service page for it → - Mud Swamp/New River Wilderness
Florida doesn't get any more remote than this: no trails, no old roads, no people. Most of the area is Mud Swamp, a region of very poorly drained clay-rich soil that holds more water than nearby Bradwell Bay Wilderness . Barely…
the Forest Service page for it → - Ocala National Forest
** IMPORTANT PUBLIC SAFETY NOTE: Several Ocala National Forest campsites, day-use areas and trails remain temporarily closed for hurricane damage assessment and recovery efforts. Please check the individual operating status for…
the Forest Service page for it → - Osceola National Forest
The Osceola National Forest is a peaceful place where people come to escape their busy lives and reconnect with the land. Flatwoods and swamps transport visitors back in time, and provide a tranquil setting for first-rate…
the Forest Service page for it → - Otter Hunt Camp
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Hunting This location is used primarily as a hunt camp during general gun season.
the Forest Service page for it → - Pine Creek Landing
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Hunting This location is used primarily as a hunt camp and boater access to the Ochlockonee River during general gun season. Boating -- Motorized and Non-motorized and Fishing…
the Forest Service page for it → - Pope Still Hunt Camp
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Hunting This location is used primarily as a hunt camp during general gun season.
the Forest Service page for it → - Revell Landing
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. Hunting This location is used primarily as a hunt camp and boater access to the Ochlockonee River during general gun season. Boating and Fishing Small motorboats can take…
the Forest Service page for it → - Smith Creek Landing
Smith Creek Landing, at the southernmost tip of the forest and directly on the Apalachicola River, provides the last chance to put in or take out a boat or canoe before heading downriver out of the Apalachicola National Forest.…
the Forest Service page for it → - Twin Poles Hunt Camp
Get back to nature while enjoying primitive camping. This location is used primarily as a hunt camp during general gun season. Camping – Dispersed/Primitive Camping Many people enjoy this solitude and primitive experience, but…
the Forest Service page for it → - West Tower Hunt Camp
This primitive hunt camp not only gives you a chance to get back to nature, but also serves as a central point for recreation in the northwest part of the Osceola National Forest. From here you can ride the West Tower Equestrian…
the Forest Service page for it → - White Oak Landing
From White Oak Landing, boats can launch onto the River Styx for an approximately three mile trip to the Apalachicola River, or head upstream to its quieter, slower moving reaches. Hunting The primitive camping area serves as a…
the Forest Service page for it → - Wood Lake
Get back to nature while enjoying this primitive camping and day use area, complete with picnic tables and access for boaters to the Ochlockonee River. Boating Small motorboats can take advantage of the excellent fishing on the…
the Forest Service page for it →
Where the camps cluster
The place
National Forests in Florida is really three forests run as one -- Apalachicola, Ocala, and Osceola -- spread across more than a million acres from the panhandle to the middle of the state. Together they hold some of the wildest ground left in Florida: crystal-clear spring runs that stay near 72F all year, the world's largest contiguous sand pine scrub, longleaf-pine flatwoods, titi swamps, and blackwater rivers. This is working forest, not a national park -- timber, hunting seasons, gators, and black bears -- and the three units feel very different from one another, from Ocala's desert-like scrub and turquoise springs to Apalachicola's wet pine woods and Osceola's cypress swamps reaching north toward the Okefenokee.
History
Each of the three forests has its own start. The Ocala came first, set aside in 1908 under Theodore Roosevelt to protect the 'Big Scrub' -- making it Florida's oldest national forest and the southernmost in the contiguous United States (though, contrary to a line you'll often hear, not quite the oldest national forest east of the Mississippi -- Minnesota's Chippewa was proclaimed months earlier the same year). Osceola followed in 1931 and Apalachicola in 1936, and the three have long been administered together as 'National Forests in Florida,' headquartered in Tallahassee. In the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps left its mark, most famously building the stone millhouse-and-waterwheel complex at Juniper Springs. The names carry the region's Native history: Osceola for the Seminole war leader, Ocala thought to come from the Timucua town of Ocali, and Apalachicola from the river and the Indigenous province tied to that drainage.
Wildlife & plants
The Ocala holds one of Florida's largest black bear populations, so proper food storage isn't optional here. In its sun-baked scrub lives the Florida scrub-jay -- a bird found nowhere else on Earth but Florida -- along with the gopher tortoise, whose burrows shelter dozens of other species. The longleaf-pine country, especially in the Apalachicola, is a stronghold for the red-cockaded woodpecker, which nests only in living old pines. Spring runs and rivers bring alligators, wading birds, and -- seasonally, in some of the clear runs like Silver Glen and Salt Springs -- manatees drifting up from the St. Johns. Add white-tailed deer, wild turkey, swallow-tailed kites overhead in summer, and the swampy corners of Osceola stretching toward the Okefenokee's gator-and-crane country.
Notable features
Ocala's springs are the showstoppers: first-magnitude Alexander and Silver Glen, plus the popular second-magnitude Juniper and Salt, all pouring out clear water that holds near 72F year-round. The forest also protects the world's largest contiguous sand pine scrub -- the 'Big Scrub' -- and it's where the Florida National Scenic Trail was born, its first blaze painted in October 1966 (the Florida Trail became a National Scenic Trail in 1983). In the panhandle, the Apalachicola is the largest of the three at roughly 570,000 acres, home to the wet, tough Bradwell Bay Wilderness. Up north, Osceola wraps around Olustee Battlefield -- site of the largest Civil War battle fought in Florida (1864), now a state historic park -- and its Pinhook Swamp forms a wildlife corridor reaching toward Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp.
Camps are sourced from public U.S. Forest Service recreation data and have not been personally visited. Roads shown are Forest Service passenger-car routes (maintenance level 3–5) and may be seasonal or gated. Always confirm access, fees and fire rules with the ranger district before you go. Found a fee where we show free? Tell us on the contact page.